Ya-Ya’s Tea-Board

We’ve been too busy this last week to post some thoughts and photos of Black Market Art’s album release party last weekend. But today I have a bit of time so I thought I get everyone up-to-date.

We had 2 shows with identical line-up, consisting of the ever-fabulous Ragamuffin Children (don’t miss their gig at the teahouse on September 8!), The Insurgents and, of course, the main act of the night - Black Market Art (BMA). The shows couldn’t have been more different - it definitely showed how much influence the audience has on a performance. Personally, I enjoyed both shows a lot, albeit for different reasons.

The first show was a mellow, beautiful affair, much better suited for the gentle sound of the Ragamuffin Children. The audience was fairly mixed, ranging in age roughly from 10 to 65! During the Ragamuffin’s set, the atmosphere was dense and everyone was focused on the performance. The following performance of The Insurgents with their loud, high energy punkish rock contrasted sharply and chased part of the audience outside. Nonetheless, they delivered a solid set and were appreciated by the remaining crowd.

When BMA took the stage, they delivered a great concert and the (sitting) audience was captured by the complicated and often unusual sounds that BMA seems to pull off effortlessly. It’s a constant balancing act between pop-tune and rather unconventional breaks. In the end, BMA creates music that is highly original but somehow sticks with the listener (to what degree, we should find out during their second concert that night).

The average age for second show dropped to somewhere around the 18 to 20-year mark and the dynamics changed drastically. While the audience of the first show had hushed instantly at the first note from the Ragamuffins, this time they had to perform to a constant hustle. The Insurgents seemed to sit much better with this audience since I didn’t notice anybody leaving the room or holding their ears. The band seemed to enjoy the presence of an audience and gave a great performance.
But it was clearly BMA that these people had come for! When Darian, Matt and Joe took to their instruments and started playing, everybody started to dance, sing along and generally - party! It seemed that most people knew every word to every song and the energy was fantastic. During the first show, BMA had played a solid, technically good show, but it was this second show that made me appreciate their sound to the full extent. The audience seemed to push them further and BMA grew to the occasion. When they finally finished (not without playing a few encores), everybody seemed to be high on the experience.
This is live music at its best!