The Islands at The El Rey

What better way to celebrate Cinco De Mayo than watching a show at a spanish-named theatre. This show featuring the acts Cadence Weapon, Why?, and The Islands more than made up for my disapointment of Wednesday's Ladytron show.

Cadence Weapon was a rapper and a DJ and even them two alone put Ladytron to shame. If I could understand what he was saying it probably would have been even more entertaining but the rhythm and flow of his raps set against head-rocking beats was enough to make his set worthwhile.

Why? was a nice transition band from the hip hop opener to the rock-n-roll closers.

The Islands is really the only reason why I am writing this post. They were everything you hope for in a live performance, and then just when you think they are done blowing your mind, they come back and do it again. Seven members crowd the stage and play a range of insturments to rival the Arcade Fire. Of course they stereotypicaly have two asian kids rocking out on violins. Banjos, guitars, saxamaphones, and even a recorder circa 3rd grade.

Perhaps the highlight of the set was the all out rock-your-socks-off jam, "Where There's a Will There's a Whalebone" where in the middle of the song, they had the singer from Cadence Weapon, Why?, and two other rappers come out and totally mind-fuck the audience with some of the smoothest and quickest rhymes ever to hit that stage.

The rest of their set consisted of bringing a 10 year old up from the crowd, wrapping his head with toilet paper and giving him a stick to hit a pinata almost as big as him. The kid tore it up and threw the internal candy out to the audience. There were numerous band members lifted onto shoulders, one of the asian kid climed onto the speakers while playing his recorder, the lead singer lit fireworks off on stage that were afixed to the head of his guitar which were immediatly extinguished by a security guard standing by with a fire extinguisher. This was done on the last song of their encore. At least we thought it was the last song.

The lead singer, now standing in a cloud of fire retardant, asks the crowd if they want to go out side for a song since it is too stuffy up on stage. He then declares for everyone to make an aisle down the middle of the dance floor and to follow him outside to go light fireworks. With guitar in hand and not skipping a beat, he begins to lead the entire crowd outside, down and across the street in front of a Smart and Final and light off a few roman candels. After he lights them off, he rips open a couple of packs of roman candles and throws them out to the huge mob that has surrounded him and is now spilling out into the street. Cars are slowly driving by not knowing what to make of the scene. A guy walking down the street asked me what special event was going on and I had to tell him it was a show at the El Rey that was moved outside by the band. A fire truck pulled up before the first firework was even lit, but they did nothing to stop the celebration. This show will definitely go on my all time top 5 shows. It was amazing.