Halfway through “O Lai Mari” off Falu’s only album, I look over at my niece Louba and her friend Mike with a smirk on my face and the smirk said one thing only: I told you so. Falu shimmered at the center of the stage like a sexual magnet, one part belly dancer, one part snake charmer. She careesed her husbands arm with a sure, glancing touch, she shook her body in a lithe youll be out of eden before you know it move then she put her hand through her thick, lush, black hair and hit the high note.
Falu and her band sing Indian based raga’s in Hindu for the most part (they only play one English language song today) with rock arrangements and the result is deliriou exiting East meets West. It is a different sounding rock which manages to avoid the pit falls ALL the other musicians who have attempted it. Christian Mills watering down beyond recognition. George Harrison’s crap sitar playing. Ravi Shankar’s impenetrable classicism. Falu blows em out of the water.
In an hour long set in which she failed to play her most popular song “Without You” and failed to play her, possibly, best song “Copper Can”, Falu and her band could not be better. Mike, a bassist, noted that the bass player was classically trained and certainly he was central. This is not the classicla Indian band I saw supprt Falu at Carnegie Hall last year, this is guitar, keybs, bass, vibes rock band. And rock they do. With an intense fire equal to anybody in the biz. And despite Falu’s enormous good humour, she burnt with a white heat that had the sold out, packed in Joe’s Pub aflame.
I am very pleased to mention Falu said a new song was going to be on her next album and I CAN NOT WAIT. There is nobody anywhere performing at this level of intensity, beauty, power. She is completely, unqiuely the best. If Falu was performing today I would go again today.
I implore you to help make this woman a star. I implore you to see what pop music can be. The incomparably brilliant Falu.