Toronto DUO Performance Reviews: Blown away...

[Jay Funk Dawg]

PLEASE POST YOUR REVIEWS AND COMMENT!! DID YOU DIG IT?

What a great night, last night was the motherload to all who came back to the El Mocambo for the DUO's debut Toronto Performance after the Medeski Martin and Wood Kool Haus show.

The Band arrives at 7:30 at the venue, more precisely The Duo; Joe Russo and Marco Benevento, an ensemble that sounds much like a full band. I take them on a tour of the El Mocambo, and tell stories of the past history of live ablums; The Stones, Elvis Costello, April Wine and legendary shows at the Spadina venue, Stevie Ray Vaughan. "wait to you see us live at the el mocambo," they joked.

So as we're talking I invite to drive them to MMW. We're talking and I'm pick their brains on their tours and their collaborations with Mike Gordon, on route. The were pretty down to earth guys, excited about being on tour in Canada. Joe commented that his last trip to Canada was out West, in Vancouver performing with Robert Walter's 20th Congress.

We chatted about the new MMW album, how we though it was a Beastie Boys meets Beck meets MMW sound, Marco, the keyboardist hadn't heard it, explaining that he was really excited to hear Trantula, the MMW opener.

After this tour they will likely only have one day of rehersals with Mike Gordon before they do a much anticipated NEW YEARS Run. They would only have had 3 informal practices with Gordon before their infamous Moe Down show this past summer. Subsequetly Gordon and the Duo have been trading tapes of songs since the tour had been decided upon. How is that change your approach the keyboards? Marco says he has to becareful avoid using his left hand as the bass player, focusing on other two handed harmonies. I could tell that they were excited about those run of shows.

The sound for the evening was awesome, the keyboards were panned in stereo. Marco found the venue's house piano and added it to his live set up...

So when the band got back to the El Mocambo after seeing only the first hour of the MMW set, they get their groove on through two sets of mind blowing jazz - funk - and avantgarde weirdness. These guys were tight, and the drummer intesely played pulsing polyrhytms propelling the keys to nice cresendos and mood changes. Second set certainly was the kick in the ass for the band, as the crowd really started to pour in from the end of MMW, about 20mins across town. Bring up the intesity of the evening of all night music revellers.

The show ended at 3:30 AM, the audience got a great encore and the band a great debut in Toronto. I was very impressed with their acoustic piano version of "Four Sticks"

in the end i realized that Jazz is not dead and these guys are a part of the new movement... At the sound board at the end of the night, the house engineer passed a burned CD over to their Manager, here the whole thing recorded he told him. "I mixed the recording audio right on the spot" "hmm... "the duo live at the elmocambo!" the road manager exclaimed.

It was great to see so many boarders there; Mike and Sharron taking photos, Dave0, Basher, Margaret, Damien, Charles, Alexis, Jonas, Rolan Cash, Dara, Jamie Sheilds, members of King Sunshine, Om Festival crew and many more having such a great time.. tell me if you where there!

[Jay Funk Dawg]

This photo from Hamilton, it says "we're not a groovy jamband" on his arm on Joe Russo's Arm... The "Jamband" according to them is a dead genre.

[bouche]

I just registered www.dyinggenre.com

Jay, I can't really comment right now. I'm making a well deserved dinner and I've got PLENTy of photos to go through.

Alls I can say is that last night really was a HUGE evening to me. I'm so happy for so many people that got to witness the duo for the first time at the El Mocambo. Thanks for making that happen.

One day, everyone will realize how important that evening and the Hamilton show was.

[Jay Funk Dawg]

Bouche was the duo's superfan.. too bad he wasn't single and had big tits or else who knows what might have happened! I can't wait for the photos!

[Ms.Huxtable]

Thanks to everyone who made this show happen. I had a wonderful time and once again the Duo blew me away. I hope the guys enjoyed themselves and find it easy to make their way up to Canada again.

If they're reading, thanks so much for playing the Big Whopper encore. That song has been on my brain since the summer of 2002.

It was great to see the Toronto peeps. HAPPY BIRTHDAY again Scottie King, it was great to see you.

[scottieking]

That whole night was really special. It was one of those birthday's that went so seemlessly - Great food (Korean Grill baby) straight to the MMW, thanks to the Punk for the ride to El Macombo, and then SHABANGA, all me favorite Skanky types more than willing to take advantage of the extended last call to make my night a whirlin swirling and in the morning, I daresay, hurling good B-day (first puke since 98).

As for the Duo, even though I'd heard the tapes, nothing beats the pure tangable energy they throw down. I can't wait to get that set to see if I imagined the fact that they started their encore to the beat I was pounding into the stage (some say yes, some say I imagined the whole thing)

Good to see everyone!

[PassedOutGuy]

was there... blown away to say the least...

im still trying to piece together how fu©king great this band really is... moved WAY up my list for sure!

[Basher]

Wow. These guys are super freaking great! Thanks to Jay for getting them up here, and I hope they come back again some time soon, even though the turnout was sad. I think they would be a great fit for CTMF at Izzy's!

I am so glad I got to catch both sets, and it was great to see some people I don't see nearly often enough.