The Duke Spirit w/ Crash Kings @ The Roxy Theatre in LA: 12/30/10

I have been desperate to see The Duke Spirit for almost 3 years, and by miracle I happened to notice the day before the event that they were playing a small show at the Roxy… obviously I seized the opportunity and bought myself tickets at 1:30 in the morning the day before the show. As if seeing Leila Moss and her gang wasn’t great already, I was lucky enough to see Crash Kings open for them, a tree-member band out of LA who I have been a fan of for quite some time. They were amazing; Mike and Tony Belveau, who happen to be twins, both have incredible voices and I found their music to be quite powerful. They also use a Clavinet D6 instead of an electric guitar, which I had never seen before but found quite amazing as it sounds like the real thing (I later learned with some investigation that this keyboard-posing-as-a-guitar was used as the guitar in Stevie Wonders’ “Superstition”). Although I think Crash Kings played for just a liiiiittle too long, I was quite impressed and will definitely check out more of their music.
After Crash Kings played, The Duke Spirit came crashing on stage, a lightening bolt of energy accentuated by Leila Moss’s unbelievable stage presence and all sequenced pants. I always knew that this band was incredibly talented and that Moss had very strong vocals, but this show proved to me that she is absolutely a star; her way of commanding the audience’s attention and palpable level of enjoyment that the band in its entirety was having while performing was completely inspiring and so much fun to watch. They opened with “The Step and the Walk”, undoubtedly their most famous song, which more than pleased onlookers and summoned an equal amount of energy from those around me than was displayed on stage. Their performance also included some of my favorites such as “Lassoo” and “Love Is An Unfamiliar Name”, as well as new tracks off their new EP, Kusama, which was released in early December. It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything new from this band and, from what I could see, their most recent material seems to hold a lot of promise. I thoroughly enjoyed this show, and strongly encourage you readers to check out both The Duke Spirit and Crash Kings, and to check out Kusama.