Support comes from The Meow Meows, a seasoned Brighton band made up of boys and girls who love all things Ska. They play an exuberant, bouncy set that perfectly warms up the crowd for the main event.
The L.A. based multi-racial band Ozomatli are in town to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their eponymous debut album. They’ve even got Chali 2na from Jurassic Five back on rap duties and it’s a decent sized crowd at the Concorde 2 here to witness their return visit to Brighton. It’s been a while.
Comprising drums, bass, percussion, lead guitar, trumpet and trombone with all of them 
contributing to background or lead vocals, they play a lively mix of Salsa, Reggae, Hip Hop, Funk, Latin and Soul music, with songs sung in Spanish and rap vocals in English. This leads to a danceable hybrid of tunes that sound as fresh as they did when I bought the album back in 1998. Opening track “Como Ves” is an energetic statement of intent that soon gets the Concorde crowd jumping.
All the band members are great at interacting with the crowd, at one point the whole band improvise a new track complete with lyrics and crowd chants based around the fact that they can’t find which instrument is feeding back on the stage (it was eventually traced to Will Dog’s bass).
Other classics from the album “Super Bowl Sundae“, “Cut Chemist Suite“, “Cumbia De Los Muertos” (Listen to the Dead) and “La Misma Cancion” (The Same Song) go down really well, a perfect mix of pop and politics, humanitarian vibes and good time music.
They end the show with their customary percussion and horn based encore played in the middle of the dance floor while the crowd dance around them and follow pied-piper style out of the venue into the street.
Entertaining, vital, lively, danceable – all things good music should be.
Peace.
Get Out Gigging 
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