BAFW @ Gnarls Barkely @ The Hollywood Bowl 07/27/2008

BAFW loves live music. The wife and I try to catch a live concert whenever we can, and when I heard Gnarls Barkely was playing The Hollywood Bowl, well . . . we just had to get some tickets. This show was part of KCRW's "World Music Festival" and also included in the bill were Deerhoof and Fallou Dieng. Lets get to the music.

Deerhoof

We didn't have great seats, and my digital camera doesn't have great telephoto capabilities. Those specks you see down there are Deerhoof. Garth Trinidad, host of the evening and DJ over at KCRW, introduced them as one of Gnarls Barkely's favorite bands. Described as "noise pop", the band got started jamming immediately as they got on, but that's all I can say about this band. I didn't understand anything the singer was singing, most likely because she was singing in Japanese. I think. This band does jam, but they lack cohesiveness, and it just sounds like 4 people out there making their own music and somehow it's supposed to blend into something enjoyable. Well, it wasn't. It only proved to be a mild distraction. The set was short, so we didn't have to endure too much of it. I wasn't taken by my online research of the band, and their live set didn't do much to turn me into a fan.

Fallou Dieng

Again, sorry about the pictures. Those specks of people you see there is Fallou Dieng and his band. They're from Senegal, and again, I didn't understand much of what was being sung. They were marginally better than Deerhoof, but only because their songs sounded like they were well put together. A lot of percussion and crazy dancing enhanced the performance. They didn't turn me into a fan with their set, but they also didn't leave me scratching my head wondering what the fuck I had just listened to.

Gnarls Barkely

As the night progressed, it got harder and harder to get good pictures with my camera. That's supposed to be Danger Mouse and Cee Lo, better known as Gnarls Barkely, but even I can barely recognize them, and I took the picture. They were pretty great. My wife expected them to be a little more upbeat, but I enjoyed their entire set thoroughly. I would have liked to sit a little bit closer, and in more comfortable seats. They did a pretty great encore. Cee Lo gnarled (see what I did there, knee-slapper!) through a cover of Radiohead's "Reckoner". That pretty much ended the show, and we headed down to the shuttles to get back to our car that was parked in the LA Zoo.

Upcoming shows BAFW will be at:

Radiohead @ The Coors Amphitheater in San Diego, CA. 08/27/2008
Beck w/Spoon & MGMT @ The Hollywood Bowl, LA CA. 09/20/2008 (with much better seats)