Two things up front. After this NO MORE ENOUGH ALREADY about Future Classic (although I still think it was a terrific and significant event for Miami music). And sorry, I didn't make it to N.E.R.D. Things were running way behind because of the rain Saturday, and at midnight it still looked like a long wait till Pharell and company would hit the stage.
Dunno if there'll be another event like this, either. The rain didn't help, but given what producers must have spent, the huge space, the level of lights, production, staff, number of bands etc - I can't imagine they did more than break even. Given all the places people gathered inside and out, I couldn't even guess how many people were there - but the cavernous Soho Studios looked like they could have held twice the number in there.
I still come from the mindframe that hip is exclusive, small, outcast, weird, outside the mainstream. No more. This wasn't arena numbers, but it was still mass culture. Good that local bands can attract that kind of crowd. Questionable - the bad art on display, velvet babe paintings for the oughts. Not to mention the high-heeled women in bikinis and body paint (t&a with a cultural veneer) handing out flyers at the entrance for an online site for ahem, adult hook-ups. And I really didn't know what to make of the guy handing out cards for a bail bond company in the VIP area. "Take one, you might need it" he urged. No, really, I don't think so.
Constant crowd at the outside stage braved puddles for a great line up of inimitably Miami styled Latin-funk-hiphop-fusion bands. Caught Haitian Afro-reggae band Jahfe, more on the reggae one-drop end of this style, dense and danceable, soulful singing, well muscled guitars and hard punching horns (and a smart promo idea - tiny Jahfe towels for wiping off the sweat produced by the steamy air and for waving in rhythm to the band).
Stunned by how good Suenalo, whom I haven't caught in eons, sounded - tight, fantastically intricate, natural sounding arrangements, every musician top notch, rapper/singer Amin de Jesus working it in fluid Spanish and English. People could choose what to dance - a reggae sway, or, like the girl couple I saw, easy salsa, and both seem natural. Suenalo draws from the collective Miami musical stew: JJ Freire, formerly of the Bacilos, one of my favorite Latin tropical bands, is on drums, and Spam AllStars Chad Bernstein on trombone, jazz master Juan Turros on sax, omnipresent Tony Smurphio Laurencio on keys. "We're always honoring the people who were here before," said Jesus. And they go with what people do now. "The way we write, someone comes up with something, we work it out onstage - byt the third or fourth time, it sounds totally different." Musical evolution.
