Concert Recollections: Go Team! @ the Great American Music Hall 4/27

Charlie, Hillary and I went to see the Go! Team at the Great American Music Hall last night, despite the fact that the latter two of us were battling some serious exhaustion. Charlie - being the young one - was rested and ready to rock. Now we managed to miss the opening band whose name I forgot - which probably is a good thing, since they didn't even have a website. Dungen, who served as co-headliner, were bringing some solid rock and roll for the first couple of songs before their set became an enormous jam session. I'd actually only heard one Dungen song prior, but I liked it quite a bit and I was looking forward to seeing them open. They didn't have a particularly great stage presence, though, and the set was probably 20% parts with vocals and 80% jamming. How much jamming can you do?

On to the main course ... as I said we were tired, and the Great American packs a few too many people in. That being said, we watched from the balcony and from there, it was a pretty awesome show. It's totally fascinating to hear music that is originally created from samples recreated with a live band. In fact there was no use of samples at all - just a rather large band. Frontwoman/MC Ninja was a total badass, freestyling lines over great Go! Team tracks like "We Just Won't Be Defeated" (my personal fave) and "Ladyflash." The crowd was way into it - and Hillary had a few interesting observations about the fans standing in front. An awesome live band indeed - they'd have to be, otherwise I probably wouldn't have made it through. Not the best venue though ... I would rather have seen them at my beloved Fillmore. But what am I complaining about? I saw the fucking Go! Team and they rocked the house.

::Previously::
1 The Go! Team Bring the Jock Jams to KCRW