With New Years Eve on a Thursday
this year, and a serious gathering of Phish heads converged on
Miami’s South Beach, the scene was primed for a high energy
Vida Blue show on Saturday night. The show opened with Jazz Mandolin
Project and an infrequent accompaniment by drummer John Fishman—even
more motivation for beach ravaged heads to make a showing at Miami’s
Jackie Gleason Theater.
When the show started just after 8:00, it was evident that many
fans were not as punctual as they had been for the four-show Phish
new years run just days earlier, as evidenced by the many empty
seats in the venue.
Performing first was the neo-fusion bluegrass of Jamie Masefield
on mandolin, Danton Boller on bass and John Fishman on drums.
Jazz Mandolin Project warmed the audience slowly, however their
set ended before the weary crowd had raised to their feet. The
show was entertaining, but it was not the highlight of the night.
At about 9:15, when Vida Blue and the Spam Allstars took the
stage, the late stragglers rectified the audience deficit and
brought the energy up a full level.
Appropriately opening with “Little Miami”, the large
group of musical motive force immediately drew the crowd to their
feet. The sub-bass kicks from DJ Spam—reminiscent of the
pimp daddy cars cruising the streets of Miami Beach—combined
with the world beat percussion of the Spam Allstars; the audience
launched right into groove mode, making the theater’s seats
less useful and more in the way. If the audience was a barometer,
the energy began rising from the get go.
During the second song “Most Events Aren’t Planned,”
the band launched into a disco-funk segment completely inconsistent
with their previous shows from 2001-2003. Looking around the audience,
the noticeably heady listeners nodded approvingly along.
The energy of the show continued to mount through “Ochimini,”
a vocal latin number from the Spam Allstars’ forthcoming
studio album, due out in early 2004. Still rising further through
“Where’s Popeyes,” and finally peaking out on
“Russell’s Tune,” the inhabitants of the theatre
found no trouble mustering the driving dancing force to keep their
hips swaying to and fro.
Gently bringing us down from the bell-curve of intensity, Page
stepped up to sing “Who’s Laughing Now”, from
Vida Blue’s self-titled debut album. The last few songs
brought nice closure to the unexpected peak of energy felt that
night.
If the last time you saw Vida Blue was in 2001 or 2002, or even
in early 2003, you are in for quite a surprise. The trio, comprising
of Russell Baptiste (the Meters) on drums, Oteil Burbridge (Allman
Brothers Band/Aquarium Rescue Unit) on bass and Page McConnell
(Phish) on keys, has embraced the addition of six latin funksters
known as the Spam Allstars. They bring many new textures to the
music including improvisational electronic elements, latin, funk,
hip hop and dub.
The Spam Allstars add to the mix, two additional percussionists,
three horn players, including a sensuous female vocalist/flute
player; a guitar, and DJ le Spam. The allstar sextet brings an
incredible depth of texture to the music. The percussive style,
with modern accent of the DJ, brings a world rhythm that will
get any willing candidate on their feet and dancing.
It seems this collaboration, along with the logging of more
practice hours and the boost of energy from playing with Phish
again (for Page), has taken an otherwise sedentary trio and given
it dancing legs.
In Vida Blue’s past incarnation—with only Baptiste,
Burbridge, and McConnell—a noticeable lack of motive rhythmic
force characterized the band’s melancholy shows. For fans
familiar with the résumés of the three musical virtuosos,
Vida Blue did not satisfy.
However, that has now changed.
If you’ve seen them before, or perhaps have their debut
CD, give them another listen. You can catch the Vida Blue-Spam
Allstar collaboration touring in 2004, as well as on the recent
album The Illustrated Band.
The addition of the Spam Allstars as motive backdrop has brought
out the chemistry we all knew was possible between this trio of
heavy-hitters. The practice and refinement of Vida Blue’s
compositions is evident now, three years after their inception
as a band in April 2001.
Jon Heinrich |