The Go! Team

Great American Music Hall
4/28/06

I saw The Go! Team last week, the night after Sekou Sundiata. But I decided, instead of reviewing the show, to just develop a list of all the relevant terms, ideas, comparisons that have accumulated over the last 2 years of unrelenting hype for this band. Originally I was gonna list them at the beginning of a longer review, to get them out of the way, but once done with the list I realized that I didn’t have much else to say. Feel free to explore these at your own leisure – Pitchfork, RS, VH1, et al have all covered the group.

Cheerleading
70s cop show soundtracks
Mixing issues (album & live)
Crowd participation
Original vs. US release
Record vs. live lineup
Why do they use sampled horns?
Ninja works the crowd
Two drummers
Buzz Band
Fatboy Slim/Public Enemy/Motown/etc./etc.
Experience/Exuberance

The show was a total rave-up, and the crowd was more into the band than any I’ve seen since the 2001 Okayplayer tour. So that was great. But intentional or not, mixing was pretty horrible. Based on the arrangements, I'd assume the density is intentional, but that's all the more reason for a good mix. It did help cover Ninja’s lame lyrics, but I thought the lame lyrics were sort of the point.

Swedish psychedelic rockers Dungen co-headlined. They look like they just left the Shire and grew 14 feet, and they play a weird, Scandinavian breed of hairy, stompfoot Viking rock. I think Jethro Tull would be the closest analogue, but that might just be the flute solo talking. The bassist, who we could barely see through the hobbit-fro, had the line of the night:

“Excuse me. We sing in Swedish, so if you do not understand…

...then that is the reason.”