Galactic

I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd never before seen Galactic. I own two of their CD's, "We Love 'em Tonight" and "Vintage Reserve", and from what I've heard, "Ruckus" is a CD I need to add to the collection. As much as anyone can be into a musician of whom's music they own 3 albums (the aforementioned two album's plus Moore's Flyin the Coop solo effort), I'm a huge fan of Stanton Moore. As I put it to two guys we were talking to before the show, he's really slick without ever really showing off or bringing attention to himself.... Fittingly, this was a notion that would momentarily be turned on it's head.....in a good way.

This concert was well worth the wait (it was originally slaited for over a month ago but was postponed because a member of the band was in the hospital with some sort of ailment).

Stanton Moore is magic. I've never seen a drummer this good live before. Perhaps even more importantly, I've never seen a drummer who gets as excited to play or looks to be having as much fun as Stanton Moore. The crowd really picks up on this energy. Everyone was downright giddy after the first song.

That's not to take away from the dynamic of the rest of the band. The glue, logically positioned within feet of eachother on stage, is comprised of the bass and guitar players. Even when he was soloing, Jeff Raines' playing doesn't lose the angular quality he maintains and that one would expect from a rythym player. Rob Mercurio's driving bass lines are at the root of it all.

Ben Ellman (sax, harmonica and fx), Stanton Moore and Rich Vogel (keyboards) are the flowers of their sound's madness. Whether playing a jazz standard, Shibuya, or Kashmir (which they covered fantastically), this dyamic provides a decent frame of reference.

I should have written this review much sooner. I'm definitely missing details....like the fact that 5 Trombone players joined them on stage for their extended jamfest encore!

The show was a 10.