Sunday, October 26, 2014

ThisSmallPlanet Video & Review: Foxygen live at the Rio Theatre, Santa Cruz, California, October 23, 2014

It was a beautiful mess. A delightful mess. It was our mess.

Foxygen, a duo of pop geniuses and troublemakers, expanded to a nine-piece performance troupe live here at the Rio Theatre.

Unfortunately the room did not lend itself to Foxygen's full frontal assault. The mix sounded muddy and all nuance was shot.

Despite this, the show was a smashing success, if only due to the sheer exuberance of lead singer Sam France, and his three spirited female companions in song and dance. The touring guitarist and drummer were excellent, as were the others (a bass player and a second guitarist), and of course, the rock that holds it all together, the counterbalance to Sam's roll, the yang to Sam's yin, keyboardist (and occasional live guitarist), Jonathan Rado.

I liked Sam's "new" stage persona, unleashing his inner Jagger/Iggy, complete with karate kicks, twirls, and whirls, shimmies, and shakes and whatnot.

The beautiful mess can be seen here on these videos that I shot: