There’s a Brass Monkey Band concert this Sunday at Barefoot. The last one was a lot of fun and generated a lot of buzz online and off. I think this is Swinly’s farewell concert as she’s going abroad for some period of time. Despite performing quite infrequently they have a pretty big fan base and a plethora of groupies, both male and female. They’re all talented musicians – piano, guitar, tabla, bass, drums – and the live shows are, IMHO, much better than the albums. Above is the flyer Desh did. Please note the lawyerly wording, if you can squint. This is the worst type of post, namely a greatest hits type from the past show, but there were like 350 comments on that so I assume there is still a lot of interest in this band.

Here’s my take on the last concert,

“I would say the Brass Monkey concert was awesome. The dance floor was dominated by a toddler and an 80 year old man left his crutch by the piano to do the twist with the bassist. By the end of the night there was a 7 year old on the mike and Anik (?) was singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with a giant snake. It was great cause it was alive, and so different from the start of the concert. At the beginning the main crowd was fully 20 ft back from the stage on lawn chairs. Behind them a mass of cool kids were loitering by the MTV trailer. Standard guys in jeans and T-Shirts and fit girls looking bored. The music was good, especially the brilliant cellist/bassist/guitarist, but the crowd wasn’t moving. Then this toddler got on the dance floor and started doing a sort of breakdance. Literally, he kept falling on his ass. Then this older white kid starts running circles around the toddler. Finally a little girl shows up and almost scares dude off. He holds his ground though, kid’s more confident than I’ve ever been. Keeps calling out ‘You Ready?’ to the band.

At that point the crowd melts and they end up on the dancefloor. The bassist is insanely good, and the tabla/percussion player was excellent. My favorite is the cello, and the way it mixes with Swinly on piano. They remind me of Phish, not in that the sound is similar, but that they’re good enough musicians to jam or at least riff-along. BMB was playing from a set-list, but the songs are experimental and diverse enough to make for an ever-interesting live show.” (Brass Monkey Concert)

… and some comments people had on the photo gallery, largely snapped by Aingaran Pillai

and a few photos,

the incomparable Swinly

Jamming on guitar and tabla

A throwaway fan shot that turned out to be of the next Miss Sri Lanka, I think

There are also the most amount of comments ever on this thread if you want to see what fans say. All in all should be a great show, I’m looking forward to it. That’s Sunday the 18th at Barefoot.

Posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 in Art, Photography, Sri Lanka.