delicate steve rickshaw stop san francisco

Finishing up a national tour with Californian dates, New Jersey’s Delicate Steve and Dana Buoy dropped by San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop for a post-Thanksgiving aural feast. You might’ve caught our rave impressions of Delicate Steve back in March with their Treefort Festival 2012 performance. Since then, they’ve released a new album, titled Positive Forcereleased a video for track “Redeemer” and put some miles on the road.

Akron/Family percussionist Dana Jessen opened for Delicate Steve, performing under his solo moniker Dana Buoy. Dana stepped away from Akron/Family to produce his solo album Summer Bodies earlier this year. Summer Bodies was apparently recorded on a remote island in Thailand and certainly reflects the recording locale with upbeat, shimmering, feel-good vibes that Buoy–perhaps somewhat jokingly–dubbed “tropicore”. In the live setting, the many layers of Summer Bodies and its deep vocal effect treatments suffered the same sort of sound issues heard during Yourself and the Air’s set at Rickshaw last week. Basically, the mix was a bit thin and somewhat garbled, not doing too much justice to the record’s sounds. Additionally, it seemed apparent that this was Buoy’s solo project taking form on the road. Playing before the uber-tight, live band of Delicate Steve probably exaggerated this. Anyhow, don’t let that turn you away from Buoy’s Summer Bodies, because there are some real solid, enjoyable tracks there.

Last time I’d seen Delicate Steve was during their incredible headlining set at Neurolux during Boise’s aforementioned Treefort Festival. This was one of the festival’s finest and also one of the most pleasant live discoveries I caught this year. In short, Delicate Steve offers extremely energetic, joyful, dance inspiring, West African instrumental pop. Looking back, I think “joy” might be the most important word here. From their opening notes, Delicate Steve had marionette strings attached to crowd’s mood. Positive Force was an excellent album title, by the way, as that’s exactly what they applied to said strings, and their instruments’ own for that matter. Steve Marion’s big hooks, jerky afro-rhythms, and altogether zest for playing radiated through the crowd. It helps that Steve’s backing dudes are severely talented players in their own right.

Additionally, it’s absolutely worth highlight that Steve & Co broke the all-t00-often-present “third wall” between bands and the audience. As an attendee next to me noted, “it feels like I’m watching an experimental, live art project”. Translation: Delicate Steve established report with the crowd early and often. Keyboardist Mickey Sanchez halted the show in its infant stages to ask the crowd, “Who are all of you? And how did get you get here?” before having the crowd shout unison responses on the count of three. Steve had the audience whopping and yelling at his command a few tracks later, so the dance party that broke out shortly after seemed quite natural. Closing their set with favorited single “Butterfly“, Delicate Steve lasted about 50 seconds backstage before returning to the exuberant, encore-demanding crowd for a final track with Dana Buoy. Bottom line: if you get the chance to see Delicate Steve live, do it. If not, settle for some Positive Force asap.

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