Indianapolis, IN. – It may have seemed like just another Wednesday evening in the north burb known as Broad Ripple, but if you happened to be lucky enough to have a ticket for Thievery Corporation with opener Dessa, you were about to take a musical journey through the “Outernational”. For 25 years, electronic duo Rob Garza and Eric Hilton (creators of Thievery Corporation – a band that brings a diverse mixture of worldly sounds and grooves, layered with hip hop beats combined with electronica – and Eighteenth Street Lounge Music – the music label operated by both Garza and Hilton) have been keeping Trip Hop solidly on the music genre map.
Kicking off the evening was Dessa, a former record executive turned rapper, singer, writer and member of Doomtree (a hip hop collective and record label based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota). It took Dessa no time at all to gather the crowd and grab their attention with some of her 2021 Singles “Who’s Yellen Now?”, “Bombs Away” and “Rome” to name a few. Be sure to check her out on your favorite social media and for an extra bonus, make sure to give her podcast a listen titled Deeply Human – a deeper dive into the psychological, biological, and anthropological explanations of our common traits. You can find it at iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts or any other major podcast platforms.
Next up was the main event. I was able to catch Thievery Corporation in October 2019 right before everything had shut down. That particular night was a quick in and out for me and I didn’t have a chance to hang out and enjoy the show. If you’re not familiar with their music, it can be very electronic; almost dreamy at times. Layers and layers of sound that can be played with and manipulated in a studio with an engineer to get a particular sound for the album but to be able to get those same sounds live on stage in a different room every night? Well, that is a whole different story! But not for Thievery Corporation. The musicians and singers that are the touring members for the band include founder Rob Garza (keyboards, guitar, bass), Jeff Franca (drums), Frank Orrall (percussion, drums, vocals), Ashish Vyas (bass), and Rob Myers (guitar, sitar) along with singers Natalia Clavier, Loulou Ghelichkhani, Racquel Jones, Mr. Lif, and Puma make it look effortlessly while still managing to raise the energy in the room. Consistently! Every time!
And that was no different this particular Wednesday evening. Thievery once again took the Indianapolis crowd on an Outernational journey kicking the night off with a little hip-hop before changing the vibe to what felt like a nightclub in the South of France then dropping down to some deep beats and political voices of Jamaican sounds before mixing in an instrumental jam reminiscent of Middle Eastern grooves or classical Indian. I was blown away at how good this band sounded live. If you closed your eyes it was like you were laying on your living room floor, listening to the studio album through earbuds. It was that good. That flawless. (Shout out to the live sound engineer and monitors!)
Thievery Corporation will be out on The Outernational Tour in the U.S. and Canada until mid December 2021. Be sure to check here for dates and grab tickets quick as no matter what town they play, it generally ends up being a “standing-room only” event.
Setlist: Indianapolis, IN.
- Assault on Babylon
- Shawdows of Ourselves
- All That We Perceive
- Originality
- Amerimacka
- Culture of Fear
- Lebanese Blonde
- Illumination
- Road Block
- Encounter in Bahia
- Sweet Tides
- Richest Man in Babylon
- The Outernationalist
- Air Batucada
- History
- Letter to the Editor
- Voyage Libre
- Heart is the Hunter
- Until the Morning
- Forgotten People
Encore:
- Fight to Survive
- Warning Shots
Show date: 09/29/2021
