Not only is her performance just an absolute spectacle, but she is totally gorgeous and adorable on stage and off. I've seen her twice and I'm totally sold.
Let's start with the band and their music - her brand of indie punk funk is cooler than ice cream packed in dry ice. The punk male fueled rhythm section is then complimented by her African tribal looking oompah-loompah backing vocalists/bottle percussionists, a beaded out guitarist and an interesting saxophonist. Ebony is the center of it all with her commanding voice, vibrant outfits and eye-popping stage presence.
They kicked it off with one of my top 10 songs of 2009 - "We Know All About You." The stage opened without Ebony - but with the backing vocalists shaking hand fans and beating bottles with drumsticks, the bassist strumming the three chord progression that leads into the song, and the drummer standing up ready to kill the snare when Ebony took stage. She came up fierce, in a wild leopard print outfit, aggressive eye make-up and eyelashes, ready to execute.
The crowd of eccentric hipsters took the cue and the back of the room exploded into a full on jungle dance party. You had to be there to really understand the energy that was pumping through the room. It had been brewing since before the performance when the DJ was spinning some Cut Copy and this clan of queens just was getting after it in the middle of the room - bumping into people, spilling their drinks, clapping, snapping and having a gay old time.
After their amazing, dance inducing rendition of "We Know All About You," (which you can download here) they did a song that I believe is called "Warrior" - which also kicked ass. Ebony jumped into the crowd to amp it up a bit more before leading us into a full on dance reminiscent of the Tootsie Roll as she screamed for us to go "to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right, to the front, to the front..." If I wasn't having enough fun - she just took it to another level with a cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall."
A wardrobe change ensued - where Ebony returned in a slimmer, but equally funky black dress that included conic shaped breasts a la Madonna and was highlighted by these gigantic black circular bracelets. From there, Ebony got a little soulful before laying us to rest with a final throw-down in the middle of the crowd.
Exhausted from the absolute dance-fest, I couldn't muster the energy to stay for the Club NME DJs or go hit up Daedelus downstairs. I got in the ride and drove home - completely satisfied, danced out and my ebony bones totally shaken. I cannot wait until the next time I see them again. Come back to LA soon please....
