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Red Marquee

Ozomatli: Conjuring the Aztec god of dance

I can't tell you how excited I was knowing that I would get a chance to see Ozomatli live at this year's Fuji Rock Festival. I had already worn out my CD a year ago and had been quietly plotting to see them ever since. Their name, Ozomatli, is Aztec meaning the "god of dance." And when they performance live, it is impossible not to pay homage to their deity.

The first time they played at the Festival, on Friday night over at the Field of Heaven, even in the rain everyone was dancing. The hundred or so of us gathered that night ended up abandoning our rain coats to the wind. It was as if the sky was dancing, too, and the rain was simply the heavens perspiring to cool down - and us too, in the process.

But that night was just a teaser. The full impact of Ozomatli's live performance didn't hit till the last night at the Red Marquee. Everyone had already had three full days of music, but regardless of which band you had come to see or whether you'd already seen a hundred bands, there was NOT ONE person within ear-range who could resist the urge to dance.

Ozomatli break all boundaries with their infectious rhythms and high-voltage energy. I have often described their music in this way: Imagine being stuck in a traffic jam on an LA expressway and everybody's got their windows down and everybody's listening to a different radio station. Ozomatli's influences are as wide and varied as the ethnic origins of their members. Latin, American, African, Indian, Japanese... Some songs are straight up Latin and some straight up hip-hop, but there's a little bit of everything in their mix.

Their trademark start to every concert is to appear suddenly in the audience, banging their drums and winding their way in a samba line up onto the stage. After an hour or so of electrifying dance-fectious music, they repeat the process in reverse, jumping down off the stage and leading everyone out of the auditorium in a long snake of flailing arms and stomping feet.

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was dancing in the Red Marquee that night. And EVERYONE joined the samba line out of the tent into the restaurant area, where Ozomatli mounted the podium used for the opening night at the festival and there they let us dance a little longer, and once again under heaven, to appease their god.

Ozomatli's was the most electrifying performance at the festival. The evidience of songs not on their first album can only mean they have another one brewing. Let's hope so and let's also hope that means they'll tour again soon. If you missed them this time 'round, DON'T let it happen again.

Reported by Jude  (2000,8.2 / 12:16)