Thievery Corporation Live

Before I start check out this Thievery remix to get a feel for what they are all about.

This past Saturday night, I was treated to the sublime aural experience of seeing Thievery Corporation live in Columbia, MD. We arrived at Merriweather around 7 and joined a number of others with an impromptu tailgate that included a couple of red stripes and some parking lot tennis(yeah, not sure how that came about either).



After a couple of beers, we proceeded to enter the venue and take in the end of the Ladytron's set. Its hard to really judge as we were hanging out way up in the lawn, taking in what was left of the sun while simultaneously enjoying some not-so-overpriced concert beverages.




Next up was TV on the Radio... a band that I am a really big fan of. They are the type of band that you have to really be in the mood for, but when you are they are very rewarding. They have a very unique--take up as much space as possible while using as little sound as possible--style. This translates into an interesting live sound, as some songs were pretty amazing, while others were definitely rough around the edges. Overall, I was really happy with their set. I am sure its pretty tough to recreate their studio recordings live, and they did a great job at trying at least.

Finally, it was time for Thievery Corporation. I had heard from a friend of a friend, that there live show wasnt that great, so I was kind of apprehensive heading into the concert. Fortunately, they were proved wrong, as Thievery Corporation put on an amazing show. Almost every song had a different vocalist, which really helped keep the energy up and made every song feel almost as if they were starting over again. My favorite vocalist was the woman who sang on Lebanese Blonde. It was known that this was on of their biggest tracks(featured on the Garden State soundtrack), and she did a great job of teasing the crowd by downplaying the song at the start and then gradually picking it up as the song progressed.

They did a great job of keeping the crowd moving by switching up the vocalists and throwing a more uptempo track in the mix every now and then. The lights and sound were pretty flawless, except for one minor issue with the first singer that came on who couldnt hear what she was singing and was forced to try her best to make a guess of how it sounded. There are way too many great tracks to try and list here from memory, but the tracks spread from their first album up until they played a song or two from their latest album which has not been released yet. I will say one of my other favorites was definitely The Richest Man in Babylon. They started this song unplugged before launching into the electric crowd sing-a-long type of song that it is.

This was one of those unfortunate concerts that were so good, there was no great way to end it. Its funny how that works out, you are enjoying yourself and having a great time, and then there is sudden comedown where you feel kind of letdown. Occasionally you get to soak in the punch drunk post concert haze, but other times you can only be satisfied by the encore that never really came into fruition.