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Antibalas
The Fillmore | San Francisco, CA | 09.05.02
Like the sound of a foghorn welcoming a sea worn vessel from its long journey home, the trombone bellowed a bright melody from a top the backstage balcony, filling The Fillmore with an ocean of sound. Eyes in the audience shifted focus to catch a glimpse of the phantom as the rest of the crew stood ready, and then pounced into a sauntering Afro-groove. From beneath the many layers of concrete overgrowth at the heart of the greater African continent of Brooklyn, New York, came the primal scream of the Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas to The Fillmore.
"It's a process when you get so many people on stage and so many different energies, so many variables." These words from Martin (Marteen, bari sax and Antibalas guru) resounded as I witnessed the tribal beauty of the thirteen musicians on stage vibing and vamping, singing and swaying. No wanking, no showboating; there wasn't a soul to hog the center of the stage during the first song. This show was all about selflessness achieved by the greater self.
Photo by Dulce Pinzon |
My friend, amazed at the sonic clarity achieved by the sound engineer, began to lecture me on the merits of having percussionists designated to the cowbell or spoon duty. But it's not just one guy playing a percussion instrument because, in a way, they're all playing percussion. The horn lines jump and boogie, pounce and accentuate, scream and wail, consistently supporting the rhythm. Like a lion's roar the baritone sax wails in and out of the rhythm, taking the crowd for a ride back to the jungles where it all began, and where it all ends we come back to the beginning again. The music carries the emotional weight; the collective consciousness humanity has amassed over billions of years with the help of some friendly protozoans. The experience of the slave trade, the Renaissance, the history of the police state, the summer of love, the good times, the bad times, the struggles, battles won and lost, lovers born and reborn again all in one night. An Antibalas show is like a 21st century baptism in the river church of sound.
An umbilical cord connecting the crowd to the band diffuses love from one to the other, sustaining the metabolic processes of music. "Messages seem so strong because they're repeated all over the place." What is the message, huh? A young, blistering Aphrodite with beautiful Asiatic features pulses to the rhythm on stage, grinds a sex organ dance with the singer as the jade flowers on her summer dress dance amongst the lights. I'm not sure if I'm in love or it's just a jealous crush, but I'm not arguing with my booty shake. "Shake ur Yansh," an elderly man with long gray hair tied into a ponytail and a burly gray beard, a living testament to the beatnik generation, gyrates like a possessed wooden soldier, and I tell myself, "only in San Francisco." I asked Martin at some point what his view was of Jr. expanding the "War on Dark People" and his answer, I think, defines the mission of Antibalas (Spanish for “anti-bullets”). He said, "We need a country that's worth defending. This country claims to be equal so let's get America to live up to the ideal." As the group pounced into "Si Se Puede," I began to see the beauty and repose of Afrobeat music. Its genius is tapping into the life energy we all need to overcome, that tangible intangible in every living thing - in nature, in the cosmos - sharing it, living it, inhaling and exhaling love for one another. For at least one night in this crazy world everyone in that audience was in love, whether they recognized it or not, and that is a very cool thing.
the bob
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