Philzone.org - Philzone Phansite Community Discussion Board: Setlists and Reviews: Non GD Related Reviews: Archive: Galactic/Papa Mali -Indianapolis- 4/18/07

4/18/2007 - Music Mill - Indianapolis, IN

I: FEMA, Linthead, crazyhorse, Hit the wall, Bottle up and go (Papa Mali), I'm a Ram (Papa Mali), Chris cross, Immigrant song

II: Moil, Bongo the dog, Root down, Jump into the fire (PAPA), Doomed, Pass the hatchet, spiderbite, Funky bird> Tiger roll> Bounce baby> Space headz

E: Bakers dozen


Quick review of a good show. Papa Mali's three piece band opened the show w/ about 35-40 minutes of swamp funk. Bluesy and gritty, it was a great way to get the ball rollin'. Papa can play some guitar. The last tune he did he was wailing on a strat. Really made me look forward to seeing him sit in w/ Galactic.

Anyway, after a short break, where I shot the shit w/ Papa Mali for a bit... Galactic came out w/ "FEMA". As far as I know it's a newer tune and man it brought the funk. Hard. The set featured some older tunes like "Crazyhorse" and a couple w/ Papa Mali, who basically, was kind of doing "the houseman" role by singing a couple of tunes...only he was ripping on guitar too. It was great and IMHO, managed to keep the focus on band dynamics instead of just a couple of throw away tunes w/ vocals. No disrespect to The Houseman.

The 2nd set was pretty good as well. The highlights being "Jump Into The Fire" w/ Papa Mali and "Funky bird> Tiger roll> Bounce baby> Space headz". "Jump Into The Fire" schorched. Papa Mali and Jeff Raines had dueling guitar solos at one point that oddly enough, had a Allman Brothers thing going...only funkier.

Speaking of Jeff, he's improved as a guitar player since the last time I saw them in 2003, I think. Also, it's worth noting that Rich Vogel was killing it on keys last night. More so than i've ever really seen him standout before. I do whish he had or played more Clav...but nonetheless. Per Usual, Rob did a great job holding it down on bass. That dude is so in the pocket sometimes it's rediculous. he's a great player...shit, they're all great players.

Anyway, there couldn't have been more than a couple hundred people there last night at most. By the time of the encore there was maybe a 150 people. What a great way to spend a wed. night. A good show and if you get a chance to check them out go for it. Thumbs up,yo. lol.