Live DC: Bedouin Soundclash ⋆ BYT // Brightest Young Things

*Photos via MySpace

The first time I listened to Bedouin Soundclash was coming back from a beach vacation in 2005. It was probably the most miserable car ride of my life…traffic was out of control, and to make matters worse, the AC was broken. We literally passed around an ice pack for the better part of an hour in a feeble attempt to cool off. While we were burning in the inferno, my cousin put on Sounding a Mosaic. Needless to say it was love at first listen. So did listening to Bedouin make the car any cooler? Absolutely not. Did it make the ride immensely more bearable? Absolutely yes. This phenomenon has held true every time I listen to Bedouin Soundclash, including Saturday night.
I got to RnR a little late. After spending the entire day at the pool party I was pretty exhausted, but nonetheless excited to see the concert. When I walked in they were in the middle of “Gyasi Went Home” and I could immediately tell it was going to be a good time.

The crowd was super into grooving out to the music, which was exactly what I needed to relax after a long (but fun) day. Even the guy in front of me, who kept shaking his ass in my face (apparently he had some running joke with one of the girls behind me that caused him to keep doing this) and the drink someone spilled on me couldn’t dampen my mood. It’s really hard not to be happy when you’re jamming out to “When the Night Feels My Song”.

There were obviously a lot of fans in the audience singing along, and even a super fan who decided to wear a Bedouin t-shirt to a Bedouin concert (let’s give this n00b the benefit of the doubt and assume he spilled a drink all over his other shirt). The band was in a great mood, and it was nice to hear a pinch of ska thrown into some songs like “Criminal” with the addition of a trumpet and sax.

They definitely didn’t forget the ska fans in that regard, playing a cover of The Specials’ “A Message to You, Rudy”. Jay Malinowski’s voice was its usual awesomely raspy self, and per usual I am 99% confident that I sang the lyrics entirely wrong since I can never tell what he’s really saying.

Then again, it wouldn’t really matter if I sang the correct lyrics or not…it still wouldn’t change the fact that I am a terrible singer. They played a ton of the songs I love like “Nico on the Night Train” and “Walls Fall Down”, and they threw some variations here and there that made a lot of the songs seem brand new. Overall it was a super laid back and fun way to spend Saturday night, especially after running around all day. My only complaint is aimed at myself for not having gotten there earlier.