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Archive for March 21st, 2014

Bowlive V: Night VI – Soulive w/ DMC (of Run DMC) and Talib Kewli @ The Brooklyn Bowl (03.20.14)

Posted in Residencies, Show Review on March 21, 2014| 3 Comments »

Bowlive V: Night VI – Soulive w/ Dmc (of Run DMC) and Talib Kewli @ The Brooklyn Bowl (03.20.14)

The wonderful crew at the Mischief Collective, specifically Hilary Gleason and Tory Pittarelli, have been covering Bowlive V along side myself the entire run. Understanding and impressed with their dedication to art and music, I felt them to be the ideal candidates to cover Bowlive: V Night VI, for TinyRager.com and the Soulive and The Brooklyn Bowl blogs. This is only the second out of 46 Bowlive shows I have missed and I felt the hard pull to be at the Bowl but knew the review was in great hands. For a complete review of The Mischief Collective’s Bowlive V run to date, please click here.

Alan Evans Trio Set
They Call Me Velvet
Easy Meat
Ain’t No Tellin’
Nothing to Say
Going Back to Buffalo
Sunshine of Your Love
Cosmic Hazel Dust

Alan Evans’ Playonbrotha opened Thursday night in epic fashion. Formerly the Alan Evans’ Trio, the group changed their name earlier this week, in part to buck the notion that they are just a jazz trio. In reality, Playonbrotha, skillfully weaves together rock, blues and jazz in a fresh and exciting way. Persevering through a myriad of technical difficulties during their set, Danny Mayer still impressed the audience with his incredibly smooth and improvisational guitar licks. Soulive’s own Alan Evans anchors the trio on drums, which meant he played for nearly four hours last night.

“I don’t know how Alan Evans did it last night, crushing some awesome rock with Playonbrotha before two more dope sets with Soulive. He truly put on a clinic in versatility last night. ~ R.A.

Playonbrotha took the audience on quite a ride last night and undoubtedly converted some new life-long fans. We all know an audience loves a cover, and Beau Sasser did not dissappoint as he skillfully led the trio through bass-heavy hits like Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”. The trio’s most recent album, Merkaba, was extremely well received and contains two of the songs we heard last night, “They Call Me Velvet” and “Cosmic Hazel Dust”. Building upon this success, Playonbrotha will be releasing a new album later this month and touring with Brooklyn based power-funk group Turkuaz. To see when they will be playing near you, click here. We can’t recommend it enough.

Photo Courtesy of Dani Barbieri

Set I
Rudy’s Way
Steppin’
Uncle Jr.
Backwards Jack
Reverb
Flurries
The Blast (Kweli)
State of Grace (Kweli, Abby Thompson)
Get By (Kweli, Abby Thompson, Jennifer Brooks)

It is definitely safe to say that the energy was at its absolute highest thus far in the 8 night run before Talib Kweli or DMC even made their way to the stage. Part of the magic of Bowlive is the element of surprise; no one knew exactly when or how these two hip hop legends would be involved in a Soulive set, but the packed house was ready to find out. Talib was the first guest of the evening alongside Abby Thompson, and the two broke right into “The Blast,” from Talib’s album with Hi-Tek. Talib then introduced “State of Grace,” and the highly anticipated favorite, “Get By,” from his album “Quality,” co-produced by none other than Soulive guitarist, Eric Krasno. After this set, there was no question as to why Talib is considered one of the most respected hip hop artists alive.

Talib’s stage presence and flow can only be matched by that of the legendary Darryl “DMC” McDaniels. DMC took the stage with incredible magnetism, getting the crowd more hyped than we had seen from any of the previous nights. Talib professed to the audience how important their set together was for him because Run DMC is the music he grew up on, and then they busted right into “Peter Piper.” We have never seen a crowd move like this at Brooklyn Bowl. One of the greater moments was when DMC dropped down to his knees in front of Krasno, a move that echoed the sentiments of many of us in the crowd.

We were pleasantly surprised, yet again, when Mike Montali, the lead singer of Hollis Brown joined the stage for “It’s Tricky.” This collaboration was awesome, in part, due to the chemistry between Montali and DMC. The pair recorded a single titled, “The Fly,” at Brooklyn’s Galaxy Smith Studios, which was started by the Mischief Collective’s own Dani Barbieri alongside Dave Brandwein in 2012. You can view the video here.

Set II
The Swamp
Alladin
PJs
Upright
7 Minutes of Funk (DMC)
Peter Piper (Kweli, DMC)
It’s Tricky (Everyone, Hollis Brown)
Walk This Way (Everyone)

Talib, DMC and Mike Montali brought the excitement levels to an all time high when they launched into Aerosmith’s, “Walk This Way.” Last night proved to us once again how versatile Soulive and The Shady Horns can be. Throughout the run we have seen them master every musical genre imaginable, and we can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves for us on these last two nights.

Hilary Gleason (Author, Photos)
Tory Pittarelli (Author, Videos)
Dani Barbieri (Photography)

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Tonight, Bowlive will be opened by the beautiful songstress Sonya Kitchell and special guest, avant-garde keyboardist Marco Benevento, joins Soulive for another face-melting night of rage.

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