all photos: Joel Didriksen
As we very well know around these parts, you have to be careful about your “style vs. substance” ratio.
Sure, glittery outfits, and maracas, and fancy footwork will get you places but you need that little extra something (like: musical talent, for example) to really survive among the fittest, otherwise you just walk a thin line between people laughing AND singing with you and just plain laughing at you.
Thankfully, De Novo Dahl has both the pizzaz and the songs to back all that pizzazness up.
I arrived to the decidedly spiffier looking Velvet Lounge (which, btw, I have been unfairly avoiding like the plague ever since Jean Louis Costes showed us his hemorrhoid and I had to cover my eyes and clutch Cale’s leg for safety) at 11 pm, and as I was getting my diet Coke a group of curly haired, sparkly necklaced women admonished my “non-drinking ways” and when I told them I had to work President’s day, asked me whether I am a lawyer or an ER doctor and “why can’t I just loosen up on a long weekend”?
I mean, THEY were ready to party, and THEY wanted me to party as well.
THEY didn’t want any party poopers around them, oh no.
Thankfully, THEY were at the right place.
If you’ve never seen De Novo Dahl before (and between me and Joel, we’ve seen them 6 times before, so we knew what to expect, and were 100% looking forward to it) here is the summary of the experience in a few easy-to-digest sentences:
-De Novo Dahl is the world’s best lounge band. On Speed. And I mean this with all the love in my heart.
-De Novo Dahl is like The Scissor Sisters if the Scissor Sisters were from the South and had a decidedly less scary female singer.
-De Novo Dahl is like The Flaming Lips little sister that goes dancing with Al Green and becomes a (ferocious) sex-kitten.
-De Novo Dahl is the band you want playing at your fantasy Vegas wedding. In fact, De Novo Dahl is possibly the band you want to marry at your fantasy Vegas wedding.
All these are good things. In my book, at least. Try and argue.
And yes, they wear a lot of sparkles, and they dance. Which, come on, is terrific.
They’ve got plenty of moves, and plenty of hair to bang.
They had the whole joint b-b-b-b-bouncing (at some point the aforementioned curly haired ladies in front of me became a tizzy of ringlets and fallen out vodka-soda straws and it was great), to a point where the floor was shimmying AND shaking with them.
They broke a guitar string after first song, and then sang a-cappella about replacing the string while the audience cheered them on.
They played some old songs, and some new songs, and some remixes (live!) all the while maintaining the level of good spirits I have not seen with bands playing to sold-out 930 club shows, let alone to 40 people at Velvet (it was packed in there!)
The new album is coming out soon, and if you know what’s good for your fun, you’ll get it.
that sounds like a cool show
wish i had caught it
i was in costa rica, having recently sold velvet lounge
it cracks me up when i read people who say “it was packed!” when there were 40 people. there.
180 people came to see rebirth brass band and all 180 were upstairs at once. (when i let them up i thought there wer only 110 per our capacity. it was only after when i counted the money that i discovered we had 180 upstairs)
THAT is velvet lounge PACKED
March 8, 2008 at 7:22 pm
that band pretty much brings hellfire every time they hit.
February 20, 2008 at 1:30 pm