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Last night may have been the best concert I have seen this year. Definitely in my top 5 of the year without question. As some one who has just returned home to Louisville, KY after 4 years out in Denver Colorado I can tell you that Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) is the hottest band since Phish. I originally mentioned STS9 to the Resonant Vibes community back in my Livetronica blog post. This unfortunately was my first time ever seeing the band perform live and I now regret, more than one can imagine, not tagging along with my friends to catch these guys the numerous times they played Red Rocks Amphitheater or The Filmore while I was attending Denver University. This should mean a lot to anyone who knows me, as I have long been dubbed the non-believer, constantly preaching about how the band was just not that good and I could not understand the buzz. Well that all flew out the window last night at The Brown Theatre in Louisville, KY!
To begin I fully believe one must experience this band live in order to truly understand the magic of what they are creating. These guys are not a rock band, they are not a jam band, an electronic band, or a funk band. Simply put an STS9 concert is like an alien space ship blasting through the universe at the speed of light into another cosmic realm with a tripped out raging dance party going on inside. It is not a concert at all but more of a spiritual awakening. As my buddy Mitch said last night “Welcome to the tribe!”
Now I know I’m late to jump on bored the spaceship so I’ll try to keep my preaching to a minimum since this is not a new experience for many.
The show at The Brown Theatre started super slow with a very late blooming crowd. I got to the venue just in time to introduce myself to the opening act Telepath, who allowed me to observe their performance form side stage. These guys are absolutely stunning in the own right. As a member of STS9’s view own label 1320 Records, which is one of the hottest Independent labels around right now, I can tell you these guys bring the heat.
The trio is made up of Curt Heiny on Bass, Michael Christie on Keyboards and Mike B on Drums. In the short 45-60 min set they played, Telepath went through a journey of world/ethnic sounds saturated with thick beats that made you forget you were in a theatre and not dancing around a fire in a remote area of the Middle East or India. The essence of the performance was that laptops & sequencers were just as important as playing an instrument, and they combined the two elements with such sophistication that is came across like a top class non-stop DJ mix which moved seamlessly through Downtempo, Breakbeat and Dub! A real treat to hear and much bigger treat to see live. Check out Telepath now! Download a 30 minute promo mix by them right HERE. Also you can buy a lot of Telepath music in the Resonant Vibes Shop!
After Telepath’s set ended at about 9pm the crowd started forming very quickly. With a short 30 minute equipment change and a flickering of the house lights STS9 took the stage too a screaming, glow stick spinning crowd of probably about 800! I instantly lost my friends in the frenzy of getting to our seats, only to realize they were way up in the front dancing in the aisles along with everyone else. No one was paying attention to who’s seat was who’s. In that moment is was just a dance wherever you want kind of show and the vibes were positive like that through out the night! Since this was my first STS9 experience I am not sure about any of the songs names, but can tell you it did not matter. The magic was in the setlist as whole! The songs never stopped. Each one would flow right into the next without even the slightest moment to breathe. The band performed everything perfectly and the crowd was giving them so much love back that the energy never dropped.
One of my concerns going to see the band for the first time was that they had recently parted ways with their lighting designer Saxton, who has enough buzz in his own right. I will say that I was not let down in the least bit by their new guy. The light show for this concert was spectacular. One the most interesting aspect about the light show was the fact that the band remained in the darkness, as not to single out any one member but only accentuate the music as a whole. They also used a very sophisticated back lit LED type screen, which took up the entire stage behind the band and project patterns/images at the crowd. It truly created a visionary expression that was as mesmerizing to look at as the music was to hear.
Again, like Telepath, STS9 was using laptops and sequencers as integral part of their performance and it worked so beautifully. Their stage setup was also one of the most brilliant and extremely well thought out uses of space on stage I have experienced. For some reason it truly enhanced the spaceship motif to me. A friend and me quickly realized that at 10:30pm, after 1.5 hours of nonstop playing, that the band was not going to take a set break. With The Brown Theatre being located directly under the high class Brown Hotel, we came to the conclusion there must be a strict curfew and sure enough at 11pm the band left the stage only to return for probably a 30 minute encore. I later found out through a friend that the band has actually changed their fall performances to include just one large set with a big encore. The show ended with a very smooth soft piece which was the perfect night cap.
Once it was all said and done the energy was still pumping through everyone’s veins like a freight train, so we naturally dipped into a house party packed full of fellow concert goers, then after an intimate dance party back at a friends apartment I finally made my way into bed at 3am.
It was an amazing night with amazing friends. I am already thinking that it seems like a perfect idea to catch the band on their New Years run in Denver Colorado. If you have not heard STS9 or Telepath check them out now, and more importantly go see them live!
John “The Grizz” Grisanti
I have mentioned STS9 to the Resonant Vibes community many times and would like to do so once again. The band has constantly been pushing the boundaries of live music since they came on the scene back around 1999! This past fall they once again took their sound in a different direction with the release of the new album “AD Explorata” which merges many organic and acoustic elements with hard driving calculated and electronic segments. The result is an album that creates flowing moments of peaceful bliss sandwiched between periods of chaotic tension! It is a sonic explosion of unique sounds and textures, that take you on a giant wave through all types of moods. In the past the band has made albums that stick to a certain motif, whether it was raw funkier song structures (Interplanetary Escape Vehicle) or intensely eerie electronic driven pieces (Artifact) there was always a common element to the albums. This album is very different from the band’s previous work. The music is extremely diverse and focuses on melting all the things that have made STS9 so unique into 12 well placed tracks!
