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Favorite This"Meet Me at the West Coast"

Published: January 9, 2011

By: Matthew Thomas

In December, BoomBox embarked on a 10 day West Coast trip in support of their latest release “downriverelectric”. Bringing along special guest Dark Party (Eliot Lipp & Leo 123) for the ride only made the party more anticipated. Hitting 9 shows in 3 states they played up and down the west coast for the first time in almost a year. Playing in familiar clubs or brand new ones, like Public Works in San Francisco, BoomBox and Dark Party didn’t disappoint.

Opening up the tour at the Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastapol, BoomBox chose to play “India” off of their previous album “Visions of Backbeat”. The song has Zion singing the lyrics “Meet Me at the West Coast”, a proper way to get things started.

(BoomBox - India)

The chemistry that Russ and Zion have allows them to completely improvise their sets on a nightly basis. They may discuss beforehand which song to open with or talk about a track they want to play, but generally they feed off the crowd’s energy and know where to go from there. The dance floor did not disagree. Down to San Francisco and over the mountains into Nevada they went, a caravan of dance music, making new fans and exceeding expectations of old fans. Zion’s melodic danceable guitar layered on top of Russ’ blending of electro beats and drum snaps, all brought together by the smooth vocals, make for a live disco trip. This was evident on crowd movers like “Showboat”, “Mr. Boogie Man” and the popular “Headchange”, all tracks off of “downriverelectric”.

(BoomBox video - "Headchange" from Ripple1999 on Vimeo.)

Having not been to the west coast in over a year allowed the duo to also dig into the aforementioned “Visions of Backbeat”. Pulling out my personal favorite “Midnight on the Run” at the Public Works led the whole room through a clap along mesmerized by the music. BoomBox returned to Eureka for the first time in 2 years, playing The Red Fox Tavern, a make up gig for a cancelation last year due to a death in the BoomBox family. The Humboldt crowd couldn’t have been more thankful for the visit coming out in large numbers on a Tuesday. With a recent addition to their space and audio/visual upgrades in the last year, The Red Fox was the perfect spot for the makeup gig.  Heading south down the coast BoomBox dropped in on Santa Cruz, San Diego, Santa Monica and a tour closer in Tempe that blew the roof off the Sail Inn.

Dark Party was an excellent choice to bring along as an opener on this road trip. Fresh off the release of their first full length album “Light Years”, these two came across as energized and inspired.  Warming up the dance floor with a disco infused brand of electro, loaded with funky beats, crowds ate up the material off of “Light Years”.  Unanimously, night after night, the crowd favorite was the album’s single “Patrol Patrol”. It seemed to be the duo’s favorite as well.

(Dark Party: Patrol Patrol from Dark Party on Vimeo.)

It’s not often that BoomBox plays the West Coast, hailing from Muscle Shoals, Alabama , its more or less a once a year occurrence.  This leads to more anticipation for each show, filling each venue with excited energy from both the duo and the crowd. With awesome talent like Dark Party along for the ride it sure makes for quite the dance party. Meet you at the West Coast? Most definitely!
After a swing through the south and across the Midwest, BoomBox will take a little time to recharge before joining forces with Sub Swara for a 7 show tour through Colorado in mid February. Dark Party will go back to working on their own solo endeavors.  Eliot Lipp will be touring with Virtual Boy in the south and was recently announced as a performer in the initial lineup for this year’s Wakarusa Music Festival in Arkansas the first weekend in June.

Tags: LivetronicaElectroBreaksGlitchDubstepHip Hop