I ended my birthday this year at one of my favorite places in the world, a place where I've spent a lot of time and money over the years: the 9:30 Club. Joe got me tickets to go see Brazilian Girls, a band that can only be described as EDM meets world music meets cabaret. I've loved their song "Don't Stop" ever since I heard it back in 2005.
The band is widely known for another song however, with a very NSFW chorus and a "better not Google it" title. I saw Brazilian Girls at a festival years ago and the audience consisted mainly of frat boys, which made me wonder. The guy next to me at this show confirmed my suspicions. He actually said out loud, "I bought my ticket for that one song." Knew it!
But I knew that they'd put on a good show beyond that one song. The lead singer Sabina Sciubba is a force of nature. She wandered through the crowd, made everyone dance the waltz, smoked cigarettes and more onstage, and accessorized her strappy sandals with a beer tucked in the pocket of her oversize blazer. She's got Euro sex appeal, alright. Miley, forget the twerking for a minute - you'd be well-served to take notes.
Horribly blurry photo goes here. The one thing I was disappointed about was that Sabina seemed to actively loathe "Don't Stop" and totally phoned it in. They really hyped it up for the encore, but she could not be bothered. Oh well. Their new stuff sounded interesting, I thought. As Sabina said, "We are going to overwhelm you with new shit."
Oh! And this must be mentioned, because I've never seen this before at the 9:30 Club.
Someone in the audience had one of those rave kites (I don't know the teminology?) and twirled it around through half of the show. I don't know how he found a spot so devoid of people to pursue this hobby, as it takes up a lot of space. Our fellow concertgoers were breathing down our necks and we were just standing there. "Maybe he bopped people on the head until they left," Joe said. The best part about it was that he was wearing a camping head lamp too. Gotta keep track of all that twirling neon fabric.
I went dancing at U Street Music Hall a couple years ago and someone was doing this. The same person perhaps? My friend said, "I just want to throw that thing in the trash," which was funny because she is the most unflappable, peaceful person. The secondhand embarrassment was that pervasive.
