I discovered Thievery Corporation with the Garden State (2004) soundtrack which featured their single “Lebanese Blonde” and still stands as one of the best movie soundtracks ever. Since then, I have kept up with the duo every time they put a new album out. For some reason however I still had never seen them live until the band stopped by the beautiful Greek Theatre on September 4th.
By the time doors opened at 5:30pm, the temperature was still above 105 degrees. It was my first outdoor concert in the peak of a heatwave and I’m not sure I’d do it again. It seemed that a lot of people had opted to show up later, closer to the start of the show to avoid heat as much as possible. I also witnessed people parking their car and just waiting comfortably in the AC of their vehicles. Therefore, it took longer for the audience to start filling up the venue. The start time was slightly pushed out and when Catching Flies got on the stage around 6:45pm. Despite the circumstances, the English musician delivered a great set of ambient and downtempo electronic music. By the time he was done, the sun had gone down behind the Hollywood hills and the venue was close to half-full. He thanked the brave ones who made it early to catch his performance.
At 7:45pm, Nightmares On Wax took the stage with a whole orchestra: trumpet, violin, guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, trombone and two singers: Sharada Shashidhar and Haile Supreme. I wasn’t very familiar with his work and didn’t know much about him other than he helped shape trip-hop over the past few decades as he is one of the pioneers of this movement. The music alternated between soul and reggae with seemless transitions. This year marks the 25th anniversary of his iconic album Carboot Soul (1999) so it made for a good portion of the setlist. One of the highlights of the set was the live rendition of the hit “You Wish” from the 2006 In A Space Outta Sound LP. They closed the set with “Up To Us” with Haile Supreme handling the lead vocals as he does on the album version of Shout Out! To Freedom (2021). The band left under a thunder of claps after an hour-long set.
At 9pm, the main attraction of the evening Thievery Corporation got on stage. I didn’t realize until then that Eric Hilton who accounts for half the duo had stopped touring about a decade ago. He wasn’t fond of the tour bus lifestyle and focuses only on the music creation part. Rob Garza (the other half of Thievery Corporation) takes upon him to carry the show on the road with the bands touring members.
From one album to the next, TC’s music goes to a Brazilian-infused house to trip-hop flavored reggae to electronic ambient music with a hint of Indian sounds. And in order to recreate all these different sounds on stage, four different singers bring their own style to the table. Laura Vall was the first singer to appear to deliver a soft and emotional rendition of “Heaven’s Gonna Burn Your Eyes”. Racquel Jones took over the vocal duties to bring her hip-hop/ragga skills to “Letter To The Editor” and cranked up the energy in the Greek Theatre. Mr. Lif followed bringing a little bit of madness to the stage. As Racquel, he is one of the notable collaborators on the reggae-oriented Temple Of I & I 2017 album.
When it was time to bring the energy down for a more mellow mood, Puma came in for personal favorite “Amerimacka”. As Rob Myers put his guitar down to grab a sitar, Laura came back to perform on the iconic “Lebanese Blonde”. Frank Orrall proved to be more than an amazing percussionist and sung on “The Heart’s A Lonely Hunter”. Towards the end of the show, the bands switched to an acoustic set-up to deliver unplugged versions of a few songs including fan favorite “The Richest Man In Babylon”.
I already cannot wait for the next occasion to catch Thievery Corporation live and to find out what the roster of singers will be on the next tour. The band will cruise through the US until early October, before taking a break and resuming hitting the road in December. Do not hesitate, go see them whenever the occasion presents itself.
THIEVERY CORPORTATION
CATCHING FLIES
NIGHTMARES ON WAX
Photos + Review by Manuel Gay | Exclusively for Music, Why Not!
