Review Tue Oct 06 2009

Review: Kid Koala at Abbey Pub

Although it's been awhile since Kid Koala's last local show, the Kid came back to Chicago on October 4 to a packed show at the Abbey Pub.

Opening the evening was local band Ohvaur. They appear to have very supportive families. Moving on! Following was an action-packed whirlwind named Adira, whose set --reminiscent of Peaches, if Peaches had more elements of Olivia Newton John and Jazzercize-- completely knocked the audience on its collective ass. She was hilarious, her music was catchy, and she has fantastic dancers. I imagine Adira's someone you want to see live--it's hard to imagine the CD being quite as good. That being said: Go see her live.

While normally Kid Koala plays solo --just a man, his turntables, and a crate of records-- this time his antics were accompanied by his fellow scratcher DJ P-Love on what I'll refer to as second-chair turntables, and two ex-members of the Australian psych-rock group, Wolfmother (Chris Ross on bass/keyboards, and Myles Heskett on drums). See, a couple of years back, Kid Koala and his friend, Dynomite D, recorded a psych-rock soundtrack to what eventually proved to be a never-to-be-released film. What to do with all that music? Apparently, a live tour collaboration with Ross and Heskett was just the thing.

And what a thing it was. Normally I'm a on-the-floor/in-the-crowd kind of concertgoer, but for this show I parked it in the Abbey's balcony, where I could get an optimal view of Koala scratching. Although his past albums have included heavy jazz and blues influences as well as more typically clubby tracks, the combined efforts between the beats and the live instrumentation worked seamlessly. Koala clearly rocked his socks off, jumping all over his rig while he peeled away layers of stacked-up vinyl off the record players. He's a charming performer; his energy is infectious as his fingers work lightning quick. And he does it all sans headphones. Crazy.

Lucky for you, Kid Koala is offering the cast-away album to download for free on his website.

— Kara Luger / Comments (0)