In having a chance to witness the Thievery Corporation tour in Seattle I felt that I should give my opinion of the show. But first, I must warn you that I was not a fanatic of their stuff before going, in fact I'd really only heard their first album (once) and their notorious song from the Garden State ST.
But that was soon to change
Getting there: I went with two of my good college buddies who swore that I'd enjoy myself, and even offered to pay for my ticket if I didn't. And even though it was the week of finals I thought I could take a night off of studying and kick back to a conceivably free concert. So we made the trek up to Seattle where we spent a good hour searching for the venue, and were hence an hour past the doors opening. But as we'd soon find out, there were no openers, and as we walked in the door what we saw was a still deserted stage. So we waited. And then we waited some more. Then about a good half hour later the lights dimmed...
The show: In a very trancy way the projectors started to cast images of circles rotating about the huge screens as some intro music began and in came the duo followed by about seven others, and they began to rock. Now for those of you that have listened to their albums, Thievery Corporation may seem like a chilled out, maybe even mediocre electronic band, but I'm here to tell you that live they become an entirely different entity. The combination of instruments backed by electronic beats makes this band an amazing experience to see. And the visual aspects were equally astounding, with lighting that flowed with every beat. Now to get back to the reasoning behind the absence of an opener.
The guests: Those that accompanied this show were too numerous to count. For just about every other song the singer would be replaced and the beats would be switched up to accompany the fresh, amazingly great vocals. The female singers (of whom there were four) took the stage for the first part of the show and really got the crowd groovin' and ready for the last portion which involved some funky dub beats accompanied by two male reggae/hip-hop artists. And although they were a little too into getting the crowd to wave their hands in the air, they did have some amazing rhythms that got the crowd moving.
The finale: For an encore the stage got continually more flooded as more and more guests came out and they even started pulling audience members onstage with them. The final song lasted for a good fifteen minutes as the singers had kept continually busting out lyrics meant to just blow the audience away. And they did, and I left feeling that the two hour set could have easily been lengthened to last all night. And I really wish that it had.
I ended up paying for my own ticket, and if given the chance to see these guys again I would be there before you could say "I am The Richest Man In Babylon".