ethiopiques, live in nyc

Last night, a group of us from eMusic headed over to the Damrosch Park Bandshell at Lincoln Center for a show that I hardly believed possible: Extra Golden, Alemayehu Eshete and Mahomoud Ahmed with the Either/Orchestra and saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya backed by The Ex. If someone asked me to design my fantasy bill, it would look a lot like this. Except that maybe Kate Bush and the GZA would be on it somewhere, too.

All that said, the show ended up being a mixed bag. I know a lot of people are keen on Extra Golden, but I have to diplomatically say that they are simply not for me. There were far too many detours into empty jamming, songs that felt maddeningly circuitous, a lot of overplaying and more than a little cheese. I respect what they’re doing, but it just doesn’t work for me.

Things improved steadily after that. Alemayehu Eshete joined the Either/Orchestra on stage decked out in a brown leisure suit, spread white butterfly collar, swiveling his hips and grinning broadly. His performance was just fine — his vocal lines felt completely untethered, darting wildly across the Either/Orchestra’s lockstep playing. It was a weird, wild element of chaos, and it often felt as if there were two different songs being played simultaneously. Eshete is a low-wattage performer. His moves were small and his voice was smaller, but there was a coolness about the way he delivered the songs that won me over.

But he was completely and utterly upstaged by Mahmoud Ahmed, who wasn’t so much a singer as he was a force of nature. He was magisterial, tall and white-haired and decked out in pristine traditional Ethiopian robes. If Eshete had the laid-back demeanor of a lounge singer, Ahmed carried himself like a priest. He was regal and imposing, and the second he strode out on stage it was clear that shit was about to get serious.

And, sure enough, it did: Ahmed’s voice is stunning, great and powerful and clear. It seemed to come rolling up from his gut, gaining force and velocity as it rose. It felt too big to take in — some kind of mighty force capable of both massive healing and massive destruction. Each song was better than the one before — the Either/Orchestra sprang to life, locking into mysterious curlicue funk grooves as Ahmed delivered fiery testimony over top. His physical movements were limited, but striking — he strode to the foot of the stage, extended an arm and waited on the applause. In between verses he bunched his body over and kicked out a series of speedy, hyperactive dances. The final number was astonishing. The band repeatedly prodded a series of tense, twitching funk licks as Ahmed, at the edge of the stage, repeated a single phrase over and over: “Ah-bet! Ah-bet!” Eventually, the audience started calling it back to him: “Ah-bet! Ah-bet!” The band got louder and more tangled, the whole show building to a kind of James Brown intensity with Ahmed commanding “Ah-bet!” and the audience agreeing, “Ah-bet!” Slowly, Ahmed made his way stage right, the band still playing, the call and response still going: “Ah-bet! Ah-bet!” He kept walking, finally disappearing backstage, the band still playing, the audience still fully in his clutches. It’s the kind of superstar move that doesn’t happen anymore — and usually when it does, it isn’t deserved. In this instance, though: perfect.

It seemed impossible that anything was going to top what we’d just heard, so after Ahmed re-emerged to perform “Erh Mhla Mhla” all of us decided to head out. I’m regretting this a little this morning, just seeing the phrase ‘Getatchew Mekurya backed by the Ex’ near the top of this post. Was anyone there who can fill us in on what we missed?