Galactic

I was limping along on Wednesday (post Oracle World party), barely able to form coherent sentences. Somehow, that didn’t stop me from checking out Raq at the Independent that evening. I’ve been rather enamored with this high energy jam band for quite some time, and they haven’t been around SF in a couple of years. Either it was fatigure or mature ears, but I was completely disillusioned with the band. They can all play real well, and real fast for that matter, but something about their music was so predictable that I just wasn’t feeling it. They didn’t really improvise - they predictably break down sections so that they can solo on top of them. The guitarist seemed really full of himself, and that turned me off. I guess its sort of like Particle – they’re great the first couple times, but with out music growth, my interest totally fades.

Out of nowhere, on Wednesday Pat McCarten emails us asking if we are free on Thursday night. So it was with great surprise and delight that we spent an evening with Pat. And wouldn’t you know it, loud music happened. I couldn’t give %110, but I believe we achieved %90. We bonded over some Secret Machines. I'm loving the album I just downloaded - "Now Here Is Nowhere"

Actually, loud music carried over to Friday, when Lars and I cranked his stereo waaaay up, and took turns swapping in and out our respective ipods. Where Pat + I like to listen to similar, somewhat aggressive, totally rocking tracks, Lars and I tend to listen to somewhat different genres. It was totally fun to be exposed to some high volume different music.

Saturday night, Stiners, Anthony and I went to see Galactic at the Fillmore. The Stanton Moore Trio was opening up and I wanted to be sure to catch them. I believe that Stanton Moore will go down as one of the top ten drummers of his generation. He is unbelievable on the kit. He has carved himself a style of playing that is almost always recognizably his, no matter what the musical setting is. His trio didn’t disappoint – I almost enjoyed it more then galactic. It was more jazzy, but the guitarist (Will Benard) and keyboard player (some CRAZY cat from New Orleans) beat it in to submission, and made it their bitch. The music, that is.

Galactic seriously upped the level of rock though. They were smoking. Ever since their singer left the band and they went all instrumental, their shows have consistently been awesome. Two sets of really tasty funk. A fair bit of getting down. When they played Stina’s favorite song, she described it as a musical orgasm.

Allllll right.

And there was poster. It’s really meta, with a picture of their last Fillmore poster on a wall in the current poster.