"Run The Show Tour" by Jeff Possiel
"March 14, 2012 @ The Black Sheep - Colorado Springs, CO"
I recently landed in Denver while on a 75 day cross country road trip and so far in just the first weekend here, I’ve been treated to quite a show. Along my travels, I’ve been lucky to catch the likes of The Expendables in San Diego (House of Blues) on their Winter Blackout Tour with Zen Robbi, Micah Brown, Pour Habit and The MTHDS. I also caught The MTHDS earlier on my journey in San Luis Obispo when they opened for two of my favorite bands, Fortunate Youth and Through the Roots at SLO Brew. Farther south, back in San Diego at The Wavehouse SoundWave, I saw Pacific Dub rock out on the Spread the Seed Tour with
Tomorrow’s Bad Seeds on their headlining tour and was also was able to shoot up to the Anaheim House of Blues the next day for Micah Brown (awesomely, once again) and Seedless who jammed on an outdoor set in sunny Southern California. Let’s just say that it’s been a blast and the show last night that welcomed me to Colorado was quite fitting. As the twenty-one show, nationwide Run the Show Tour comes to end in Colorado this weekend, Fortunate Youth lit up the crowd for the headlining Tribal Seeds on Thursday, March 14 at The Black Sheep in Colorado Springs.
I’ll start with the Tribal Seeds, who have been a tremendous positive force in the reggae-rock genre over the past several years and continue to attract new fans with every live performance. They opened with alarms of the recently released single and tour titled track, “Run the Show”, with space like zooming sounds and heavy bass that immediately sparked the crowd into a head bopping sway. Hard hitting “Warning” followed for a power packed duo to introduce themselves to the crowd of the evening and all night long the audience screamed receptively when Steven Jacobo, lead singer, called for them to “make some noise!”. Tribal Seeds in the flesh is a lot of fun, most songs are stretched out, adding time for new effects, great sounds and many more dance moves for the crowd. Rhythmic versus with uptempo choruses beg for the next breakdown and tracks like “Libertad”, when guitarist Tony grabbed the microphone for the Spanish verse, really got the crowd going as they raised their hands and volume of cheers in excitement. That was certainly one highlight from the night whereas “In Your Eyes” into “All I Know” was a personal favorite of mine. The night finished super strong with “Vampire” and an appearance and freestyle from Dan Kelly of Fortunate Youth. This left the audience pumped up with great enthusiasm to end the set before a two song encore finale of “Love Psalm” and Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved” to close out the night.
As I mentioned earlier, Fortunate Youth is one of my favorite bands and I have been fortunate myself to have seen them live in NJ last winter, in California last month and now here in Colorado two nights in a row. The group is filled with talented musicians led by vocalist Dan Kelly who can spit with the best of them and engages the crowd like no other frontman. Jordan on the drums pounds the heavy bass lines while Travi Bongo, so righteously named, moves from the congas to the bass and guitar song to song. Brothers Corey and Jared Draskovich also switch on and off from keys to bass with Corey ripping on the guitar as well. Main guitarist, Greg, also switches it up when he hops on the bass in a true showing of special musicianship as they trade instruments seamlessly between songs. Epic time changes and jams lead to killer breakdowns in every track resulting in a bumping crowd and a great live show. Fortunate Youth has a powerful stage presence and integrate the crowd with every chorus, it’s hard not to be engaged when Dan is standing on the amp holding onto the ceiling floating above the crowd raging on the mic! They also treated the rasta colored crowd to a new track “Some Might Say” that fuels the flame to the prospect of much more new stuff coming soon. During the bands final song, “Sweet Love”, the track comes to an end with Dan in the crowd and fans singing along as he made his way to the merch table in the back where the whole band proceeded to meet and hangout with fans for the night. Fortunate Youth is a great group of guys with such appreciation for their fans that they are sure to rock your beanies off. It’s no wonder they recently were picked up by booking and management agency SEG: Sweetwine Entertainment Group here in Denver as they have gained fans and momentum over the last month opening for Tribal Seeds. You can be sure they will be headlining their own nationwide tour very soon, when that happens, be sure to move those shows to the top of your summer concert priority list and find that “Love is the Most High”.
These are two, extremely talented and hard working bands who put forth incredible effort toward appreciating their fans while touring endlessly on the road. There’s no doubt about it that they are only able to continue to do this by the real support of the fans who find inspiration in the passion of their music. These bands and their artist friends are truly influential and we as the fans need to express our connection in relationship with these artists. It’s only right to share Tribal Seeds and Fortunate Youth’s talent, story, inspiring and positive lyrics with others. At every chance, spread the love and support live music.
Article written by Jeff Possiel
Tribal Seeds Links
