Concert Review: Fool’s Gold live @ Siren Studio (11.7.09)

By Travis Woods

Part of a weekend series of clever promotional shows—one had to test-drive a Kia Soul to gain entrance to the concerts, which included locals the Silversun Pickups on Sunday night (look for a review of that show tomorrow)—L.A.’s Fool’s Gold laid down a 45-minute set of their unique and kaleidoscopic blend of Afrobeat, soul, rock ‘n roll, and nearly any other genre you can think of on Saturday night, turning Hollywood’s Siren Studio into a smoke-filled cavern of blurry, intersecting cultural riffs that repeatedly drove the audience into a dancing and celebratory ruckus.

Playing nearly every track from their excellent debut record (review here), the eight-piece collective (led by singer Luke Top and Foreign Born’s Lewis Pesacov) opened with the percolating pop and sunny, stinging guitar lines of “Surprise Hotel,” turning the songs into extended jams that used the recorded versions as launch pads into jittery funk and rhythmic, keening soul, with tunes like the anthemic, sax-stung “Nadine” and the nervy bristle of “Poseidon” expanding into epic grooves of boundary-free world music.

And while Top’s rippling and melismatic vocals were impressive as he wove them into the fabric of each song, it was Pesacov’s guitar work that stole the show, leading the music (and the dancing crowd) with a series of blistering and melodic lines that grew more frenzied and elaborate with each successive tune.  By the time the band exited the stage, one at a time—while playing the chanted vocal outro of “The World is All There Is” as they did so—the audience was a sweaty mass that continued singing the song even after Fool’s Gold had left; whether it sold any Kia’s is unknown, but the night certainly (and rightfully) earned the band a bevy of new fans.

November 9, 2009 | Filed Under Concert Reviews, Exclusive Features 

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