From Dengue Fever's MySpace page Local band French Disco, which are neither (though they do create lyrics in French) opened for Dengue Fever at the San Francisco Independent last night. More accurately, since they were the first of three groups, they opened for punk/jazz/funk/forró brasileiro band Bat Makumba, also from San Francisco.
The ticket price averaged to about $6.00 per group. Add a bit more for gas (OK, a lot more, it's up to $4-ish around here), bridge toll, dinner and the parking we finally found (after one of us had an extended conversation with one of SF's finest about parking in a yuppie supermarket parking lot and another banged on the door of what turned out to be a medical marijuana clinic with a heartbreakingly empty parking lot right across the street from the venue) and it was a wonderful, sort of inexpensive evening in the city.
The SF Independent is a great place to see a band, though if you need a seat, you'd have to get there really early. It's very hollow, lots of standing room on the black concrete floors and when it gets too crowded to see the musicians on stage, there are mirrors on the walls and you can see their reflections.
French Disco was very calming...sort of smooth and soothing. Bat Makumba, uber energetic. The tall drink of water lead singer rapid-fires Portuguese and English into the mike while in constant motion. The rest of the band plays a myriad of instruments, including all kinds of tropical Brazilian shaky gourd instruments and a flute and they draw on sources running the gamut of o tropicalismo (Brazilian arts movement of the 1960s whose best-known musical pioneers were probably Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso) to the David Bryne project to Frank Zappa to rap.
I conserve my previous assessment of Dengue Fever. They're reallyreally LaLaLa. So much talent and energy. If they're coming to your town, go see them.
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