Summer Haze Review
G Love & Special Sauce, Slightly Stoopid & Ozomatli
Marymoor Park - Seattle
9 August 2007
It was a typical overcast Seattle day with the threat of rain looming at any second. Then amazingly right on cue, as the first Summer Haze band Ozomatli hit the stage, the clouds parted and the event was suddenly living up to its name.
There was no other place I’d rather have been: lovely weather, beautiful park setting, friendly crowd and Ozomatli rocking the place with its crossover of Spanish, hip hop, funk and world music. Playing mostly songs from its latest release, Don’t Mess with the Dragon, the band delivered a short but inspired set.
Ozomatli is a hard beast to watch sometimes as there is so much going on. The Ozo classic Cumbia de los Murtos got a great re-working with a surprise breakdown into Lilly Allen’s Smile and the reggae classic Pass the Dutchie by Musical Youth. The band finished its set with Saturday Night (is there a song that grooves harder live?) and Como Ves, before heading off into the crowd for their traditional musical conga line. Later, a friend of mine said he had to regrettably duck off to the restrooms just as Ozo was finishing, but it ended up a wise move as the band practically followed him there and provided him with a funky restroom soundtrack.
In true Ozo style I think the band converted many concert goers and after attending a few of their shows in my time I have never heard anyone say 'they didn’t like them'. Why aren’t they more popular? Who knows?
It’s always hard for a band to follow Ozomatli, but the enthusiasm of the Slightly Stoopid fans in attendance helped take the evening to a new level. Opening with the very old Mr Music, Slightly Stoopid continued to play a fair selection off all their albums. It was only the band’s newest album, Chronchitis, which was slightly neglected with only a couple of cuts being played.
As at all Stoopid shows front men Miles and Kyle switch vocal and guitar/bass duties to great effect, each getting a chance to shine and catch a breath when needed to. While there is zero punk on the band’s latest album, the style is still a major part of its shows and the mosh pit went crazy when songs like Perfect Gentleman and a punked-up version of Babylon is Falling was aired.
A personal and humorous highlight for me was during the song Officer. In step with the theme of the song, some kids in front of me got busted by security for smoking an illegal substance. I only saw security patrolling the crowd that one time too. Funny stuff.
Slightly Stoopid’s relatively new horn section is a welcome addition and certainly found their place in the Stoopid show coming in at the right times to increase the party level. Not surprisingly for a concert tour called Summer Haze, Sensimilla and Couldn’t Get High got the biggest sing-a-longs of the night from the rowdy crowd.
After being entertained for over two hours the crowd still hadn’t had enough and were in high spirits by the time G Love & the Special Sauce hit the stage. After starting off with the funky Back of the Bus, the band then dedicated its next song, Dreamin’, to Brad from Sublime with G Love confessing none of the bands would be there tonight if it wasn’t for them. Probably true.
After a pretty furious start G Love slowed things down with a couple of classics from his debut album like Blues Music and Baby’s Got Sauce. A true showman and backed by a talented band G Love kept serving up just what the crowd wanted with favorites like I-76 and Cold Beverage. The Stoopid boys joined them on stage for a great mash up of Slightly Stoopid’s own Mellow Mood and Bob Marley’s song of the same name before G Love returned for a quick encore.
With three such great bands on the one bill I knew it was going to be an entertaining show and it was. All the bands were on fire and the crowd was always responsive. Not a bad effort Seattle for a Thursday night. Not a bad effort at all.
Reviewed by Pilipo
Check out more photos from the show in the videos below.
Ozomatli in Seattle - Summer HazeSlightly Stoopid in Seattle - Summer Haze