Show Review: Thievery Corporation w/ AM & Shawn Lee at The Fox Theater – Oakland, 9/16/2011

6164521637_3a4cf3aacf_z — Clavier striking a pose, Myers looking cool on the sitar, and Rob Garza on keys, one of the masterminds behind all of this

One of my favorite experiments is to go see a band that I know nothing about. Usually this tends to be a low key affair, in a small venue somewhere. It’s rare for a band to play a venue in the 3,000+ capacity range that I’ve managed to miss. Although it can easily be a gamble, the pay off can be great. On the warm Indian Summer night, I took the new band challenge.

Opening the show was a band called AM & Shawn Lee, a supergroup of sorts. Their story is that AM, a musician that blends together 60’s psychedelic rock and modern, downtempo electronica, was listening to KCRW and heard Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, an artist the was doing a very similar thing. They put their heads together and released an album of lush, 60’s inspired rock. The band walked on stage at 8:15 to a very loose crowd.

It was about 15 minutes in, during the disco rock rave up of “Promises Are Never Far From Lies” that the crowd started to fill in. The folks in the back & in the lobby started to pay attention to what was going on, and folks started to “feel it.” Slowly but surely, as the band played on, the audience grew, and gradually became more excited about what was going on on stage. They also new how to read the crowd, and played up the disco and the groove, and turned down the guitar driven rock. There was some epic, swirling Korg playing during a wonderful instrumental piece, and the single, “Somebody Like You,” even turned on the more serious dancers, getting some actual hips going. They closed their set out with a cover of Ozark Mountain Daredevil’s “Jackie Blue,” turning it into a blissful cross between Yes, Air, and The Bee Gees.

The room was once sparse, was pretty solidly packed by the time Thievery Corporation took the stage. They opened with the minimalist groove of “A Warning (Dub).” Then, the first of many in a revolving cast of vocalists came on stage. The spunky Natalia Clavier jumped out to sing “Web Of Deception” and the sitar – driven jazz number “Lebanese Blonde.” And, seemingly as quickly as she lept on stage, she was gone, replaced by the stunning LouLou Ooldouz Ghelichkhani, a woman whose soulful voice sent chills down my spine. She seemed to remain on stage for even less time than Clavier, but she owned the stage with her renditions of “Take My Soul,” the trip hop single off their latest record Culture Of Fear, followed by the reggae/house fusion of “Until The Morning.”

At this point, you are probably asking yourself why I know all these song titles for a band that I have never heard before. Well, at The Fox, it’s pretty easy so get a spot right behind the light board, and I was actually following along with the lighting guys setlist while taking notes. To any fellow budding music journalists out there, this is a pretty prime spot to work from at this venue.

The first part of the show seemed like they were simply introducing singers. Next up were the identical twin, dreadlocked soul singers Zeebo & Rootz, and they sang on the Sly Stone flavored “Liberation Front.” These two singers were amazingly animated, and were probably the best performers of the singers. They had their dance moves down, and played off each other nicely. In fact, there was a third singer on stage with them, and he was barely noticeable next to the funky brothers.

Dakin Hardwick