Weekend of Music Took Its Toll

So - thank goodness it is sort of a holiday today - because we still need an extra day to recover from the amazing weekend that was.

It all started with catching Eyedea & Abilities late set at Echoplex on Thursday. The 200-300 people who remained were hype on Rhymesayers but admittedly a little thin on their knowledge of Eyedea's lyrics. With one of the most potent arsenals of verbal weaponry you could possibly conceive of, Eyedea's performance lacked a little spunk because Eyedea had less verbal crowd energy to feed off of.

Nonetheless, the MC delivered a somewhat inspired performance. Likewise, the jamband STS9, took stage at The Wiltern on Friday as part of their national tour. The show was pretty crowded and the band delivered a cohesive set of music. But, it unfortunately was minimal on the heavy rhythm jungle jamming and lacked the songs that have become my live favorites. (At the least, the debut of their new hat by the rising underground clothing company Grassroots California was a huge hit!)

These touring veterans, Eyedea & STS9, just did not hold a candle to the rising acts we saw for the rest of the weekend....

Performing as part of the STS9 after party series, Big Gigantic and Elliott Lipp absolutely wrecked The Roxy late night Friday. Although the show was not completely sold out, the energy felt as if it was.

Big Gigantic really turned our head. It was the first time we'd seen this group and we'll expect big things from them in the future, gigantic things perhaps. Their sax fueled dub party was intoxicating and kept the crowd moving (as seen above). Some of their music is available for download for free and the group is hopefully taking the festival circuit by storm this summer with a scheduled performance at Wakarusa already.

Elliott Lipp (seen in the Grassroots California Bakers hat above) was also providing the fuel for the party as he closed out the late night jam on his computer. Even as the clock approached the 4 am curfew, the crowd was clamoring for more.

We had so much fun, we raced back to The Roxy the next night hoping it would somehow be Groundhogs Day. It wasn't - but we got a pleasant surprise because it was Zombie Prom! Saint Motel played host at the sold out 2nd Annual Zombie Prom extravaganza. With a featured zombie photo booth, bloodied and batty drunk fans and love from the crowd that was only exacerbated by Valentines Day - Saint Motel delivered a totally inspired performance (AJ featured singing below).

With a handful of sold out and absolutely spectacular shows in Los Angeles under their belt - we at SUPERGOODMUSIC sort of think that Saint Motel will be one of the explosions from the LA scene in 2010 that ends up on the national radar. Let your friends at SXSW know that they need to go see this indie rock quartet.