1 post tagged “toubab krewe”

I thought that I would rather go through another divorce than ever go see a jam band, but it turns out that if the band has some ethnic percussion going on then I'm down with the jamming.  In my efforts to find more live music to go see (of a style I actually like, i.e. not roots rock, not country, not folk, not bluegrass) I happened upon Jambase on Monday and learned that Toubab Krewe would be playing in Ithaca on Tuesday.  I'd never heard of them, but the band bio said they play Malian/rock fusion, and that seemed to fit into the whole Afrobeat kick I'm on, so I went out to Castaways last night to check out the show.  It was great!  Lots of varied rhythms, extra percussion, kora (which I think should be called "harptar" in English), great ensemble playing, some real rockin' out, and not too much of that happy-sounding "high life" music that I usually find annoying.  Without any horns they're not quite as satisfying as "real" Afrobeat, but it was a fine performance nonetheless.  I don't have any Toubab Krewe audio files, but there are scads of clips of them on YouTube, of which this one seems the best:

I had so much fun I almost forgot I was twice as old as the rest of the audience, until some guy called me "Sir" when he wanted to get by me.  Punk!