What an incredible show. I was surprised to be seeing Mdou Moctar performing at Now That’s Class, but putting these unusual elements together, the result couldn’t have been better. Mdou has a great story, which you can read a little about in the Pitchfork review of his album below (8.0!). He was raised in Niger but has this incredible ability to weave together his culture of music with the West. Blistering jams filled the night, ones that you kinda wished never ended (as you might pick up from some of my video below). I’m still stunned, and will be enjoying this album for quite awhile...
"Whether it’s stories about African-American legends reared on plantations in rural Mississippi or the apocryphal tale of a young Jimi Hendrix carrying around a broom until his family could afford a real guitar, blues and rock aficionados love a hardscrabble creation story. So it makes sense that in the discourse around one of the year’s most incandescent examples of guitar music, much ado is made about Mdou Moctar’s first instrument. The Tuareg guitarist was raised in northern Niger by a deeply religious family where music was verboten. He made his first guitar from a piece of wood strung with brake wires from an old bicycle, his many hours of practice kept clandestine."
(Via Mdou Moctar: Ilana (The Creator) Album Review | Pitchfork.)
Opening was Guerrilla Toss from NYC. Not the band I would have imagined being paired with Mdou Moctar, but a thoroughly enjoyable band in their own right. Throw in lead singer who brings in a violin into a jam-based rock show, and I’m impressed.
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