The Forward Music Festival’s stated mission is to join local bands with national and even international ones. In its second year they built on last year’s successes, casting an even broader net to bring in a wide variety of acts. Tonight’s show brought together African influenced bands This Bright Apocalypse and Chicago’s Occidental Brothers Dance Band with actual Africans BLK JKS. A perfect pairing, but it didn’t run as smoothly as it should.
TBA was slated to start at 7 pm; unfortunately there wasn’t a sound guy there then. They finally got set up to sound check just before 8, when they were told they had to wait because there was a wedding next door and they needed to be quiet. Which made me wonder what would have happened if the show had actually started on time. After an abbreviated sound check, they started their set close to 8:30. After hearing about Sleeping in the Aviary having to rush through their set at the High Noon the night before, playing all their songs double time to fit into their delay shortened slot, I imagined the same thing happening to the Fruit Bats, the last band on this stage. I heard later that Kevin Warner had cancelled which kept them from another scheduling crisis and the Fruit Bats went on around 12:30, only a half hour late. This is a festival that encourages you to jump from venue to venue, but the ability to do that depends on things running on time.
People who showed up at 8 expecting to see the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International had to be a bit surprised that no one was even on stage yet. This worked out well for TBA who was treated to an unexpectedly large and enthusiastic crowd. With guitarist Johnny Maloney living in Door County and drummer Chris Sasman frequently unavailable, they hadn’t played together as a three piece in quite some time. Despite that, their six song set was surprisingly tight, and as always undeniably entertaining. Multi-instrumentalist Luke Bassenauer has lived in Ghana which colors the rhythms and content of his music. He believes in it so strongly that I have no doubt would be willing to play the shows solo if he physically could. The band will be releasing their third CD as soon as Luke can get the other two members to record their parts.
I’d seen the OBDBI open for Andrew Bird at the Logan Square Auditorium several years ago, essentially the last time I’d been able to afford an Andrew Bird show. While it wasn’t exactly my thing, I was pleasantly surprised by the multi-cultural band and their rhythmic, percussion-heavy music. It wasn’t until later that I realized that lead guitarist Nathaniel Braddock had been in my basement (c’mon, Logan Square is a big place and I was far away). Part of a closely intertwined Chicago music community, he is also a member of the Zincs and plays with Edith Frost. The last time those two bands played Madison, everyone except Edith stayed at my place, and Nathaniel and I played some drunken ping pong. The Brothers get their biggest boost from Kofi Cromwell of Western Diamonds (voted Ghana’s best Highlife band three years in a row) who sings and plays trumpet. It’s the mixture of Chicago jazz and African traditional music that makes them so intriguing. While not really my thing, I like anything I can dance to.
This Bright Apocalypse
Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
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