San Diego July 21-22, 4th and B

Two nights in San Diego offered the Corporation an opportunity to unpack its bags and rest a bit after playing three nights in three different cities with no tour bus to rest in and defuse while traveling between venues. The crew, which had which yet to sleep, heroically drove down with the equipment from San Fran while the band flew, arriving in southern California during a heat-wave, which ultimately took the lives of over 140 people in the state. Some family and friends of the band joined the entourage and added to the merriment during the final leg of the west-coast tour.

The venue, 4th and B, is a cool club, similar in lay-out to Roseland, with a large open floor section, with a bar on one side and seating in the balcony. It holds about 1000 and was sold-out both sulty nights. The show started late the first night as the venue stuffed more people into its steamy interior. The club has a powerful sound-system and if, like me, you were upfront by the stage (under which is located a bank of bass speakers) you felt your heart and other organs vibrating in your chest-cavity from the force. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about the A/C, which did not function. But with such a cool band and such a cool audience, who needs it?

My comments will focus on the July 22 show, which in my opinion was the better of the two. There is passageway between the stage and the audience that allows photographers to move around and get different angles. I borrowed sitarist/guitarist Rob Myer's pro digital video-camera to record the show better than my little camera permits and thrust myself front and center. I was joined by, among others, New York-based fashion production designer Melissa D'Attilio and Las Vegas-based photographer Lisa Johnson, whose images of celebrity guitars were featured in Dish Magazine. After Rob's batteries died, I went back to my little Lumix FX-9 and shot some more stills and video.

The band was energized and the crowd was equally hyped up. Everyone was dancing throughout the whole show. Eric and Rob G kicked things off, as usual, with Outernationalist, followed by tantalizing performances of Le Monde and Omid by Lou Lou, which seduced the audience, some of whom stretched out their arms attempting to make physical contact. The first explosion came when bassist Hash absolutely tore up Facing East, an instrumental featuring bass and percussion. This set the stage for Alana to taunt the audience with melifluous and soulful renditions of Lebanese Blonde and All That We Perceive. On her first tour with Thievery, she complemented the exotic flavor of chanteuse Lou Lou and the Ornitorrinco-like vocals of Karina, who one fan rightly described as looking like a super-model. Each of the three sirens, with roots in places ranging from Azerbaijan to Brazil to Jamaica, is beautiful in a special way and each contributes a unique sound and style to the Corporation.

Folks in the front row were especially into the show and the audience responded to my turning the camera on them by voguing and blowing kisses. This is quite different than my day-dig, lecturing about art in a classroom! Situated between the band and the audience, I felt like a conduit channeling energy from the stage to the floor and back, and this was extremely energizing. That has been my role on tour in many ways, this blog to wit. When I'm shooting pix or video of the show, I'm also digging the performance, at once capturing, conveying, and contributing to the particular energetic forces of Thievery and more generally, to the raw energy that makes live music exhilerating and transcendent. I groove with the band as part of Corporation and I groove with the audience as part of the crowd. I high-five the front-row as we scream in ecstasy together and I embrace the members of the band and hang-out with them as a member of the touring party. This is a familiar role for me in my past career managing jazz musicians and currently as a an art historian, negotiating meaning between the artist, the artwork, and the audience. I came on tour to learn about Thievery Corporation, hear great music, and have fun with some friends. I ended up learning about myself, becoming one with the music, and feeling adopted as part of the Thievery family.

In addition to the San Diego shows, I had a great time seeing my cousin Wendy and playing Slip n' Slide with her gorgeous grandchildren Allie and Lily and hanging out. I saw some noteworthy art at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) in La Jolla, including a light art installation by James Turrell, some humorous recent work by Richard Pettibone, John Baldessari's conceptual art classic, "Terms Most Useful in Describing Creative Works of Art" (1966-68). The stand-out piece was part of the exhibition, Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana/Extraño Nuevo Mundo: Arte y diseño desde Tijuana. In this untitled work by Einer and Jamex De la Torre from 2006, sharp-tooth mouths at the borders of a wall-size mural of the US suck in immigrants to the vaginal core of middle-America, then expunge them in the form of butterlies on crucifixes that fly through the museum and are transformed into fighter jets that have Christ on the Cross hanging beneath them.

More on the afterparties, etc. later... I promise that I'll load up more pix and vids eventually. I shot over 6 GB of material over the week. Blogger's pic uploading system is not being cooperative and the Internet Archive struggles with my large video clips...