Rebirth Brass Band & Extra Action Marching Band @ The Great American Music Hall

On Saturday night forces of brass and drum converged at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. A spectacle of lights, dancers, masks, costumes, horns of all sorts and foot stomping beats came together in a sweaty ear-popping 4-hour montage of music.

Hailing from New Orleans the main attraction, The Rebirth Brass Band, brought a mix of big band trumpets, saxophone, trombone, bass and snare drums, hip-hop lyrics and covers. Their energy passed through the crowd and at the end of the night it was a full on party.

The local Bay area opener, Extra Action Marching Band, set the bar quite high with a show that in my opinion went unrivaled throughout the night. With an entrance that had them marching out of the back of the GAMH to perform several of their songs in the midst of the audience, they jostled everyone's sense of normalcy. Their highly sexualized act was this juxtaposition of music and dance that kept your eyes flitting from one spectacle to another. If marching out with pounding drums, blaring horns, flags, dancers and masks weren’t enough the band and dancers gradually stripped bare throughout the show until almost everyone in the band was flashing some sort of skin. They ended their set there was a with a quasi S&M spectacle complete with leather, fake money and lots of skin. Odd? Yes. Entertaining? Extremely.

Enjoy the Pics,

Here's the whole story on SF Weekly Music Blog All Shook Down by Anna McCarthy