He played last Thursday night at the Echo in Los Angeles, a four-band-gig evening, and if each of them brought a different tone to the night, his approach was sometimes bloodthirsty, or even ferocious and always merciless.
Stepping on stage armed with a red electric guitar, his black hair groomed backward, he was asked if he was ready, but still listening to the song played in the background, he said we should run it through before starting the show. I forgot what it was but it must have been some of these classics he venerates.
He then asked to turn the lights down, and he played his too short set in a mid darkness with red shades, hardly appearing in an intermittent white light, because of the numerous flashes of the photographs.
Only backed up by a friend on drums, his abrasive electric guitar was the star, roaring like a motorcycle, dueling with the drums and, once his black jean jacket was gone, his fully tattooed arms made completely sense.
If the music could be qualified of something between blues, garage rock and soul, it is more powerful and rawer than anything I had listened to that could qualify for this kind of sound. The Black Keys may come to mind, but it is still a different beast, which seems closer to some original idea of rawness, or rage, suddenly released.
He sang his famous interpretation of the jazz classic ‘You Rascal you’, which totally belongs to him by now, but also a mean cover of the legendary Sam and Dave ‘Hold on’
The music is battled to the ground, literally, as he knelt down facing the amp several times, but it also has other elements, close to doo-wop, like in ‘Dead Wrong’
‘No set is complete without a little Kelis’ said Hanni at the end of the performance, and he did another unexpected cover of R&B singer Kelis, ‘Millionaire’, violently executed and hardly recognizable.
Set List:
Garbage city
Come alive
Build. Destroy. Rebuilt.
We don’t mind
You rascal You
Hold on
Loved one
Dead wrong
Fuck it
Millionaire/mother
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p818nOYy4Y&fs=1&hl=en_US]