We caught ‘The Bad Plus’ last night at one of my favorite venues, The Old Town School of Folk Music. Holy crap was that amazing. I’ve been listening to their tunes for the past year or so, and even though their CDs were produced by Tchad Blake, the don’t come anywhere close to demonstrating what the are capable of in a live setting.
The played a very tight set, highlighting their most recent project, ‘Suspicious Activity’. Each of the musicians were excellent of their respective instruments, but I’d like to say something about the drummer, David King.
It’s rare to witness true excellence. To see someone so in command of their abilities that they have complete confidence in what they are doing. Something I enjoy in things like jazz music or college basket is the moments when someone steps up and discovers something amazing in their abilities. For that brief moment, they have found how excellent they can be. It’s usually brief, and is most certainly something worth living for.
When ‘The Bad Plus’ began to play, and most particularly when David King began to play, it was pure excellence. He seemed so completely confident in his musical ideas and pursued them completely. It was fantastic and amazing, their set flew by and I wished that I could have seen the second performance that evening. They came out for a brief encore with their version of ‘Flim’ by Aphex Twin. That in particular was a great little quota for me. That particular Aphex Twin project (Come to Daddy) was a huge influence on my when I was still in music school. To see someone performing the intricate electronic percussion parts live, was just superb.