Flobots @ the Warfield
On Sunday I saw the Flobots (myspace) at the Warfield.
I’m going to be upfront about this: while I love old old Flobots , I’m not particularly a fan of their current violin funk music direction. And as I’ve stated many times that I dislike the Warfield. In fact this was my first show there in over 3 years. And, while I’m being upfront, I was pretty annoyed by the people behind me who were yelling “Nice!” “Fuck yeah!” and (during a song) “I can’t believe people are talking through this!”
So why am I even writing about this show? Because the Flobots put on a good show. It was engaging despite the above.
In the live setting I found the vocals more central on the Flobots newer recordings (even though they were mixed too low at the venue). That allowed me to put aside the music to an extent. Not only are Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit good MCs–Jonny 5 is, in fact, tremendously talented–but they’re good showmen as well. They got the crowd going while getting across what they wanted to get across, mostly centered around the group’s progressive politics.
One thing I found unfortunate is that though the crowd responded well overall and especially to the more anthemic choruses and songs, they didn’t respond as well to Jonny 5’s headier raps, which is something I appreciate about his songs. For example, on one song, Brer Rabbit held up a sign with “IRAQ” written on it and Jonny 5 went through a huge chunk of the song rhyming through words that began with I R A and Q fluidly like he did with DARE on “Onomatopoeia” (”Drugs Are Really Expensive Drug Availability Reflects Extensive Dependence And Real Educated Descendants….”). I feel like in the long run, if these audience reactions are consistent, they’ll be encouraged by that to not to do songs like that and to stick to the more anthemic stuff.
I’m not the sort of person to get particularly worked by politics, but after their set and the closer “Rise”, I was walking out of the venue emboldened to an extent. That’s a testament to the group’s presence and showmanship.
