June 5th, 2010: Oneida / Secret Chiefs 3 / Oneida

@la villette

I somehow managed to miss both Lena Circus and Blues Control, and only got there in time for Ganglians. Maybe I was just too disappointed by my tardiness, but I couldn’t get into their set. I had heard them being praised for a while, but it didn’t sound all that interesting to me.

Secret Chiefs 3 went with a more mundane lineup than the other time I saw them, with a violin being the only unusual instrument — and that’s not that weird. They played their interesting mix of wildly different styles, sometimes in succession, sometimes together, ranging from surf to metal with a middle eastern flavor, from unique sounds to their Halloween theme cover. Good but a bit too close to last time, so that the element of surprise was gone for me. The sound was pretty crappy too, with the lowest frequencies being pushed louder and louder and ending up pretty much covering everything, which was a shame.

I’m not sure that outdoor setting was the best thing for Oneida, I think it made the show more distant, which is so not like them, and robbed part of their intensity. Bobby Matador couldn’t make it, which hurt a lot in my opinion. Maybe that’s why they went with similar longer tunes throughout. Kid Millions still rules though, and on its own merits I think that was a good set. But nonetheless short of their lofty standard, so I hope they’ll be back with the full lineup and in a venue that suits them better.

Advertisements