Six months on the Shinobi Kids are all grown up. So grown up they forgot to put my name on the guestlist so twelve bucks later at a packed out Mercury Lounge past midnight, they better gimme my moneys worth.
Well, of course they do. A nearly flawless hour of rock and roll (the flaw? they ended with a new number “Jump thru This” -great song, wrong time.)
Shinobi Ninja open with “From Brooklyn To Babylon” -surely their most popular song, and they start off exactly where we left off at Santos all those months ago. They haven’t missed one step and indeed have learnt quite a few new ones. DA is the agressive fun guy we all know and love, hawking band merch with a “We don’t wanna get rich, we just wanna get metrocards”.
DA hasn’t really improved his rapping but he didn’t have too many places to go with that, though his singing is much better. He really can move from rap to rock now (especially a punk song that sounds more like grunge). Maniac Mike performs a great solo that is a pure mix of funk and metal and a highlight of the show. Jonny, the bassist is also on fire and his solo is a non stop disco inferno.
But the night belongs to Baby Girl. Under represented on 2009’s Brooklyn To Babylon EP, on stage she is co-leader with DA. You can’t upstage DA but you can learn from him and in one show stopper after another she goes head to head with the best. If DA’s best moment is a galvanised “Stop!”, Baby Girl is a joyous “Na Na” -one of the Shinobi greats which they need to record now when they’re young and still innocent… Baby Girl invites six women up from the audience to sing back up and it is a lesson in participation everybody can learn from: the chorus is two one syllabel words you can sing without worrying about being in tune and you can sing at the top of your voice. It is just plain knock out. Last year it was Baby Girl’s “Superstar” that stole the show… this year “Na Na” must be a hit -at least a dance hit. Has to be.
Everybody is on their game today, even DJ Axis, who said maybe three words when Sciortino and I interviewed the band last year. Tonight DJ comes out from behind the turntable (the guy scratches like a master -especially on “Rock On”) and dances like crazy with Celtic shirt wearing Baby Girl.
Yeah, Baby Girl dances as well and so does DA and the two string boys play against each other and Terminator Dave is just a power tool powering through rock and roll history.
Everything about this set was on a whole other level.
Shinobi Ninja are one of the great live experiences of our time. Twelve bucks? They can have my money any time!!!