Simply sensational
No time for a full review, but I will say I saw one of the most amazing and magical concert performances of my life last night. Vieux Farka Toure is the son of the great Malian songwriter-guitarist Ali Farka Toure who died of cancer in 2006. I was greatly saddened at never getting to see him perform, but this made up for it more than a little. His son is a superb performer and the band was incredibly tight and just a blast to watch. The personnel close to the same as in the video above, but with a different bassist and rhythm guitarist. My only intoxicant was a ginger manhattan I nursed through the evening, but there were times I felt like I was tripping at a great Dead show. Toure reminds me of a hybrid of Garcia and Hendrix backed by an incredibly soulful african groove. This guy is going places. The drummer you see in the video looked completely out of place when he came on stage with three huge and very dark-skinned Malians (the bassist and rhythm guitarist I saw were similar in appearance to Toure). It looked like they had grabbed some skinny white hipster to play as a joke. He quickly showed he belonged. The guy was just incredible and powered an awesome groove all night long.
Vieux just concluded a US tour, but he says he’ll be back every six months or so. If you get a chance do not miss these guys.
BTW- the ensemble last night had only a drummer and no dedicated percussionist, but the drummer did occasionally go bang on one of those hemispherical things like you see the guy on the left playing. It had a great sound and I wouldn’t have minded hearing it combined with the drums as in the video.
Comment on February 4, 2013 @ 11:44 am
Here’s the lineup I saw, playing one of Vieux’s dad’s tunes:
Comment on February 4, 2013 @ 11:53 am
Pleasant stuff – I lean more toward the older, harder-core music of Fela Kuti – He died in 1979, but lives on in the hearts of Nigerians:
Comment on February 4, 2013 @ 3:32 pm
I guess what to one man is pleasant is to another a peak experience. I just cannot express in words how brilliant the performance was that I saw last night.
Comment on February 4, 2013 @ 3:38 pm
In my classic tradition of minute attention to detail, I misspelled the middle names of both father and son. I was wondering why there was absolutely nothing in my online music service when I searched on “Ali Farke Toure” and “Vieux Farke Toure”. It turns out when you spell it “Farka” there’s a ton for both. I’m now listening to a luscious live album by Vieux. Heavenly for coding.
Comment on February 6, 2013 @ 2:22 pm