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Concert Report: Smokey and Miho, 20 Minute Loop, I am the World Trade Center

I am the World Trade Center (and if you have issues with that site saying you don't have the needed version of flash, try here, although I don't know why they felt the need to make their site be so flash-heavy) certainly has a distinctive name these days - people remember seeing it. They probably do not expect the energetic, playful electronic dance music with lots of prerecorded sounds and female vocals. They also do some voice manipulation stuff and have some crazy theremin-like interface to play samples on, which looked incredibly fun. They also looked like they were having a great time performing, which made things seem a lot better. The crowd seemed into it and was bopping up and down about as much as indie kids seem to do. A nice way to start things off!

20 Minute Loop came next, although I knew what to expect after already seeing them a couple of times. Apparently both singers had a bit of a cold, but they still put on a pretty good show, although I may be influenced by actually knowing some of their songs at this point. I'm not sure about their song ordering, though, since their biggest responses from the crowd came on songs they played in the middle. I also sometimes wish they would shorten their songs a little, but maybe I just have a short attention span.

Smokey and Miho came next, and I hadn't done any digging so I had no idea what to expect. I never would have guessed 1960's style Brazlilian music! I'm not knowledgable enough to tell my bossa nova from my samba or whatever else there is, but it was a really neat show to watch and listen and wiggle around to. They had a trumpet player, a sax/flute player, a percussionist, a stand-up bass player, and another singer in addition to Smokey, who played guitar and sang, and Miho, who sang. I don't think the crowd quite understood the etiquette for solos in mid-song (clap right away!) but Smokey helped everyone figure it out with some well-timed "give it up for..." lines. Of course, as a band they didn't have a jazz-level of improvisation since they weren't looking at each other enough. Even I could tell this since Smokey walked across the stage to whisper in some of the people's ears during the middle of one of the songs. Heh. So, I don't know that it is music I feel the need to listen to more often, but they had a good energy and seemed excited to be sharing this music with the audience.