this is not your average concert event.
it will be exceptionally cool.
we're about to get our heads exploded by these guys.
they love to play and they don't take prisoners.

the tickets are $15 for this 19-and-over show.
that will be enough to keep the so-called 'shady element' away.
leaving just us music lovers to work up a sweat on the dance floor.
i'll probably get there b/t 9 & 9:30.
i'm really hoping to see a bunch of you there.
you won't regret it.
in fact, you'll thank me for it....

in case you're still unconvinced, here's some more propaganda...

http://www.journalstar.com/ae.php?story_id=30483

Antibalas
BY L.KENTWOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star

Band aims to spread the Afrobeat culture as well as its sound

In the 1970s, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti combined revolutionary rhetoric with
a musical mix of guitar-based "high life" music, West African
percussion, Afro-Latin horns and funk to create Afrobeat, a distinctive,
powerful musical style.

Dedicated to ending political corruption in Nigeria, Fela was
persecuted by that country's military dictatorship, subjected to beatings,
home-invasion military sieges and imprisonment. Yet, persisting with a
steely defiance, he managed to reach a worldwide audience from his
home in Lagos, making more than 80 albums with his band Nigeria
70.

In 1997, Fela died from AIDS-related causes at age 58.

The next year, a group of New Yorkers determined to carry on his
legacy formed Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, a multiracial Afrobeat band
with at least 11 members taking the stage each show. While they write
and perform their own music, the members of Antibalas do so in the
spirit and tradition of Fela.

"We're very committed to the original roots," said Antibalas founder
MartinPerna. "Everybody who was tight with Fela who lives outside of
Nigeria or travels back and forth has seen us, and they've given us their
blesssing. There's only a couple people who could tell us to stop, and
they've told us to keep going."

Antibalas will make its first Nebraska appearance at the Royal Grove
Tuesday night, providing a rare opportunity for local fans to experience
the dance-inducing groove of Afrobeat.

Most of the material in the show will come from Antibalas' two
albums.But expect to hear at least one Fela song sometime in the set.
After all, the New Yorkers learned most of the master's catalog before
beginning their own compositions.

"You've got to learn all of those," Perna said. "It's as if you're a jazz
quintet, learning `Autumn Leaves' and `MyFunnyValentine.' They're
classics."

Of late, Antibalas has been playing Fela's "Colonial Mentality," a biting
critique of European colonialism in Africa that parallels contemporary
events, particularly the seemingly inevitable U.S. invasion of Iraq and,
most likely, the years of American oversight of that country as it
rebuilds.

That possibility is particularly disturbing to Perna, especially when the
war talk comes from those who profess to be Christians.

"Would Jesus be in camouflage gear and night vision goggles?" Perna
said."This is a time for introspection, no matter what your religion is.
America deserves more. America deserves peace and all our dollars
we've worked so hard for invested in the country, not in the pockets of
the head of Enron."

Perna comes by his world view naturally. His great-grandfather was a
philosopher who lived next door to Leon Trotsky in Mexico City, offering
shelter to the exiled Soviet revolutionary when authorities were known
to be looking for him.

"He was a humanist philosopher,"Perna said. "I definitely try to
continue in that. Party ideology is just ideology, no matter the party.
What is important is respect for the fellow man, regardless of class or
nationality. That begins the roads to peace, the roads to
understanding."

Perna's lyrics are activist -- the title cut of Antibalas' new album,
"Talkatif," urges listeners to put their social consciousness into action.
But he said Afrobeat shouldn't be judged only by the words or only by
the music.

"I don't think you can really separate the two, it's the whole package,"he
said in a telephone interview from Pittsburgh. "It's not just the music,
it's the whole spirit, the psychedelic spirit, the sensuality."

The baritone saxophonist, who comes out of ska and funk, assembled
Antibalas (Spanish for "bulletproof) in 1997-98 to fill a gaping hole on
the New York live music scene.

"Afrobeat really needs to be live,"Perna said. "But nobody was doing it
in New York, really doing it. It was missing the intensity and the spirit.
The world needs Afrobeat. The U.S. is more like Nigeria these
days.This music is a weapon. It's people celebrating life."

In the past four years, Antibalas has released two albums and
developed a worldwide reputation as one of the few true Afrobeat
bands, earning it slots at both the prestigious Newport and Montreux
Jazz Festivals.

"That was really, really cool,"Perna said. "It went over really well at
both
of them. Many more people, I think, in the jazz world are looking to
Afrobeat. Maybe not as directly as we have, but they're finding Afrobeat
offers possibilities of improvisation you don't find elsewhere. To a jazz
ear, at first it might seem like a pretty simple thing.But when you get
into it, it's a whole universe."

Antibalas has toured Europe and both coasts but has made just one
previous journey through the middle of the country. Regardless of the
locale, Afrobeat can be an exotic sound in places where Fela is little
known.

"It's very interesting to see all the things that have been written about
us," Perna said. "If they don't know Fela, they don't know where to place
it. They say it's James Brown or something it's not."

By the end of Tuesday's show, those who come to the Royal Grove will
know what Afrobeat is about. The odds are about 100 percent they'll
have heard four hours' worth by the time Antibalas leaves the stage.

"The shows are as long as they can be," Perna said. "If they tell us 90
minutes, we'll try to get 120 minutes out there. If they tell us three
hours, we'll try to get four hours. That's the nature of Afrobeat."

ReachL. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or at
kwolgamott@journalstar.com.

If you go

What: Antibalas
Where: Royal Grove, 340 Cornhusker Highway
When: 9 p.m. Tuesday
Admission: $15 at the door, $12 with a flier or handbill for this
19-and-over show

matthew landis
multimedia developer ~ allstate financial
402.328.5983 ~ landimdp@allstate.com
-----
twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by
the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
so throw off the bowlines. sail away from the safe harbor.
catch the trade winds in your sails. explore. dream. discover.
-mark twain