I went to Merriweather Post Pavillion in Columbia, MD on Saturday night to see Manu Chao and Radio Bemba Sound System and f;lajfelk;jA;LSKDJFAEASE;L ajlk;sdf!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Excuse me. Let me give that another shot.

I went to Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD on Saturday night to see Manu Chao and Radio Bemba Sound System, and they proved once again to be one of the most infectious, cathartic, and hardest-rocking bands in show business right now.

Bebel Gilberto played early; sadly I missed her set. There were DJ sets from Ursula 1000, Nickodemus and Thunderball as well as a set by DC’s Thievery Corporation.

Thievery were neat. Lots of musicians. I find them intriguing, but something intangible about music rooted in electronica tends to turn me off, and I don’t have a good set of references to judge them by. They had some good guest musicians onstage throughout.

Manu Chao and the Radio Bemba Sound System thing feels like a whole different phenomenon in music. The French-born Spaniard Chao, whose grandfather escaped a death sentence from Franco by moving to France, is gigantic in Europe and Latin America, but his brief tour here last year was his first foray into the US in nearly a decade. The whole thing seems first and foremost to be a political exercise; most songs speak of poverty, the oppression of indigenous peoples in Latin America, economic globalization and the marginalization of immigrants in the US and Europe. Manu Chao has played a protest show at the G8 summit, and he went touring through Latin America on a boat, playing unannounced shows in little villages.

The music itself? On record, it’s a bizarre street-folk blend of mestizo folk, reggae, ska, Caribbean music, punk, Gypsy music, funk, rap, and spoken word, a background noise of movie clips and electronic video-game noise adding a schizophrenic atmosphere throughout. The lyrics are in Spanish, French, Portuguese, English, Arabic, or a blend thereof, whichever works for the song’s concept.

In concert?

Holy. Shit. Seriously?

Radio Bemba Sound System, for this tour, was a stripped-down six-member version of the band that accommodates up to 23 musicians. Two percussionists, bass, keyboards, guitar (all doing backing vocals), and Manu Chao on lead vocals and guitar.

As such, the show sounded more punk rock and less ska- and funk-influenced than the full onslaught with horn section. The songs are wholly reincarnated in the live show, a non-stop juggernaught of punk, metal, reggae, ska, gyspy folk music and whatever else has found its way into Manu Chao’s mind in his nomadic travels.

The music essentially doesn’t stop throughout the set; the songs segue into one another and sections of various songs are embedded into others as recurring themes in a sort of….(gasp)…jam band concept. The drums and Latin percussion are unreal in their intensity. There are sudden, heartstopping double-time breakouts followed by 10-beat pounding endings to many of the songs. There are few countoffs or even visible cues between members as the band charges relentlessly from one song to the next; relief comes in extended breakdowns and the occasional ballad. There are frequent call-and-response bits and infectious shouted chants.

This is as tight and practiced as bands get, and the effect is nearly narcotic.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a must-see spectacle. I waited years to see them, checking tour listings to no avail for almost two years while in Spain, searching for any show in Europe, and then finally saw them at Lollapalooza last year and again on Saturday.

It has been worth the wait. Of all the shows I’ve seen in recent years, the Radio Bemba Sound System experience is a rare opportunity that I count among the best I’ve had as a music fan.

More Info:

Interview and article in LA Weekly