(photo by Musicmaker Magazine)
Ya Se Fue
Ozomatli at the Pier Bar (Honolulu, Hawaii) 8/5/00
Review by Stu Dawrs
[If you read my review of the gig, you know that I ran into Stu Dawrs at this gig. His review ran in the 8/9/00 "Clubbed to Death" column of the Honolulu Weekly -- Doug]
(photo by Musicmaker Magazine)
Ya Se Fue
Ozomatli at the Pier Bar (Honolulu, Hawaii) 8/5/00
Review by Stu Dawrs
This opening sequence isn’t especially pretty: The place is packed. Traveling with the herd is that uncomfortable This Is Your Life ambiance that comes with living in the same town for more than a few too many years: Folks you’ve known forever, by face more often than name, are milling about. A whole mass of introduced-once-too-often-to-say-"What’s your name again?" folks.
What’s up with you?
Me? Pat, pat. Just belly farming.
Hah, hah.
Hah, hah.
Later.
Later.
It’s a measure of this show that the crowd covers the whole spectrum: Eye-’em-up-and-down body appraisers rub shoulders with boys and girls in birth-control glasses. Old-school anarchists lured by Ozomatli’s message; young club professionals who you wouldn’t expect to see at the Pier Bar ever, let alone on a Friday night, here to check the band’s Latino hip-hop fusion. There’s a jarhead in cowboy boots and jeans so tight you can tell the brand of his underwear (BVD, and thank god he’s wearing some). The people you just can’t quite place, but who leave you with the vague terror that comes from those days of more hooch than was logical or necessary: Have you seen me doing something awful?
But it’s not so bad: Quadraphonix is on stage, and the bar is open-air &emdash; all crowd mismatches are bound to dissipate in the night. Three failed attempts at securing a beer, seven failed tries at avoiding eye contact, five happy bump-intos (Kathy with a K? Yeah!) and now Ozomatli is assembled in the wings, preparing to samba its way onstage. I glance over my shoulder just in time to see two security lunks descending on the Refuse & Resist clan &emdash; busted for putting up a "Free Mumia!" banner. The cowbells are clanging, the crowd rushes over to watch the band and I watch my favorite revolutionary face The Man, just as she has for, like, forever. Go Caroline! But the banner comes down: Aloha Tower security, which once let Perry Ferrell wave his weenie in the air and they just didn’t care, aren’t quite as user-friendly as they used to be.
Like they have anything to worry about here: For a town that can form a pit at a reggae gig (moshtafari!), the crowd is just plain cordial. A honky dread (not to be confused with the Dreaded Honky) works his way past, touching my shoulder lightly. It’s enough to bring on the final unhinging &emdash; that moment when things are broken down into their sometimes puzzling pieces and the packed-in-its-own-juices crowd is distilled only to the people one wants to recognize. There’s Doppleg‰nger Nick, shaved head shining in the night, and Rick too, his head bobbing to the beat and you can’t manufacture that kind of cool. Otto just flew by, eyes wide (and with this, he has just surpassed the million mention mark in these pages, earning a lifetime subscription for enduring the constant embarrassment of being publicly praised by donkeys). There goes Ms. Jen, bent low to the ground and eyes blazing, weaving her way toward crowd central. H. Doug and red flea &emdash; take-no-prisoners poets for life, recording industry moguls and Electric Laulau backup singers &emdash; suddenly appear on either flank, just as I’m trying to greet my love with a kiss &emdash; clack go the glasses … Dangerous Mating Rituals of the Nerds, coming soon to the Discovery Channel. Hugs all around.
Ozo is far beyond working the crowd. Even the tight-jean Marine is jumping up and down with his hands in the air. And he just, I’m pretty sure, don’t care. And there’s Caroline, on the inside, banner unfurled again.
What was up with the security? "I don’t know, I told them this was a band that was all about free speech … I mean, what the fuck?" She says all of this with a grin &emdash; this is what she does; these are her people.
So then the band is into its final tune, chanting "Ya se fue! Ya se fue! Ya se fue!" A phrase I’ve always translated as "It is gone." (Donde esta mi cabeza? Ya se fue. "Where is my head?" and etc.) I suspect theirs’ is a different meaning, but this works, too: They are way gone. The chant segues into a rousing version of "John Jacob Dingleheimer Schmidtz," with guitarist Raśl Pacheco attacking the mic while wearing a cowboy hat sideways. The band comes off the stage, still playing, and spends another 20 minutes surrounded by the crowd. It’s a medley, including the theme songs from Hawaii Five-O and Sesame Street and Black Sabbath’s "Iron Man," salsa style. What kind of band is this that refuses to leave? Forty minutes after the show is over, Raśl is still standing around talking to the crowd.
Ya se fue. Time rolls on. Driving home, the sedan hits a pothole and my belly jiggles. It’s all good.
[Check out Doug's review of the same gig]
[Added 8/18/00 -- Ozomatli's statement re the police riot at the Dem National Convention]