Quantic at The Earl, Atlanta - March 12, 2015

Thursday night was a March Madness show with Quantic, who we missed last time he played Atlanta at Terminal West.  

I attended this show almost out of spite.  I'm still not 100% recovered from this persistent late-winter cold, but having already missed four out of five March Madness shows so far this month, I didn't want to fall further behind.  That, plus the missed Terminal West show last year, forced my ass out the door last night, even though part of me really wanted to just stay home and continue my recovery.

Atlanta duo 7 Deadly Daggers opened.

7 Deadly Daggers are a drummer and a keyboardist who play a groove-oriented jazz-funk hybrid. They were enthusiastically received by the small Earl audience, and part of the fun of their set was seeing the obvious joy on the faces of the musicians as they realized that people were actually digging their sound. It was a fun opener.  

It didn't take Sinkane long to set up after 7 Deadly Daggers.  To my surprise, Sinkane exclusively d.j.'ed his set, neither singing nor playing any instruments of his own.  While I enjoy a d.j. set as much as the next person, and was soon dancing along with everyone else in the audience, I missed hearing Sinkane's soulful vocals.

Quantic's d.j. set merged seamlessly with Sinkane's, and if you weren't watching and paying attention, you wouldn't have known when one started and the other ended.  But as Quantic hit his groove, the difference was obvious - Qunatic's set consisted of his collection of 45 rpm rock-steady, reggaeton, and cumbia records, giving the evening an exotic, if still danceable, vibe, while Sinkane sampled modern EDM and r&b.  The houselights stayed dim through both sets, and this was about the best picture I could snag of Quantic performing.

Here's a pretty cool video of Quantic and his 45 collection, apparently playing on somebody's boat because why not?  It's only slightly less dance-oriented than last night's set, but still captures the exotic rhythms and flavors pretty well.

Something about this video makes me think this is how Amsterdam drug dealers kick back when they get the day off.  Or maybe it's like this:

And that was Thursday night - dancing off the effects of a cold with a world-class producer/d.j. and an ecstatic Earl audience.   A bit of a change of pace for yours truly, but then isn't that what it's all about, after all?