No Club Left Behind – Nico Vega @ Muddy Waters 9/6/09

Labor day weekend, taking it easy, especially on a Sunday and all of a sudden I get a phone call everyone wants to get, here is a sorta how it went down (FYI Dave is my Music Director at 92.9 KJEE and all around good guy)

Dave- “Hello”

me-“yo”

Dave-“so do you wanna be on the list to go see Nico Vega tonight at Muddy Waters?”

me—“wait, what? Nico Vega is playing at Muddy Waters, shut the fuck up!”

Dave-“so do you wanna be on the list to go see Nico Vega tonight at Muddy Waters?”

me-“no doubt”

Dave-“ok, well you should be getting a text/phone call from the label rep”

Me-“fuck yes”

Risa happens to be a super cool label rep from myspace records that was nice enough to be put this specialty DJ’s name on the list plus 1 (for the Mrs.) Lucky for me their set time got moved to 10pm, which is perfect because my specialty hour is from 8pm to 9pm. To prepare for the show I played the 1^st track of their self titled debut album Burn Burn on New Noize.

So I was off to see one of my favorite new bands at a venue that has no stage, no real set up, and is super small. I have seen Nico Vega before, so I knew what I was getting into, wells sort of that is.

Nico Vega is one of those bands that come around every so often, take you off guard with their audio, and then throw a 3 ton boulder of pure American Rock n Roll when you see them live, and that’s the kind of shit I like. Their debut self titled album simply put an awesome American Rock album from LA. I have seen this trio live before, twice, and they are all about a LIVE set. Their album is great, but when you actually witness the Dan smacking the shit out the drums, Rich playing some seriously heavy chords and Aja’s vocal range and showmanship (or womanship in this case) you know your witnessing Rock in the purest form.

Muddy Waters is the venue that they decided to play, this place is small at best. I figured that I was gonna see an acoustic type set, which would have been nice cause they come with the thunder. As with most things in life I was wrong, way wrong.

Muddy Waters capacity has to be in the double digits, and the place was pretty packed for a Sunday night. Nico Vega took the stage and did a fairly short set. It was a great mix of soft and hard, slow and fast, subtle and in your face. It was sweaty as fuck in there and no one was sweating more than the Dan, the drummer. Aja was climbing all over the place. One of the major highlights was her walking over to the bar, then standing up on the bar, spinning a ceiling fan while doing a great acoustic soft version of “Iron Man” off their album.

They did however blast the windows out of Muddy waters with aggressive tracks like “Gravity”. Medicine Man was also great live. Early on Aja was cascading through the crowd doing a song that I didn’t recognize, but the chorus goes, “fe fi fo fum I smell the blood of an American man”, and it’s always a treat to see a band that likes to interact with the crowd. But the best was the closer, BEAST. I have seen them do this closer before, but I didn’t know that they were gonna rock the shit out of it like they did last time. Beast is a song that sums up all which is Nico Vega. Rich rips through this track, especially during his solo accompanied by Dan’s drum line. During Rich’s solo midway through the track Aja jumps into the middle of the crowd and left it all on the floor twirling, dancing and performing to the audience.

The band was available to all their fans afterwards, and Risa introduced me to both Dan and Aja, both were real cool and souped to play such a small venue. The only complaint I had with the show was how long their set was, then again that is usually my complaint when seeing as good as they are. It would have been nice to hear tracks like “Blood Machine” or “This To Shall Pass”, but again then again they played a dope set for their time slot and the venue. Also its Ramadan so I can’t drink and all I wanted was some whiskey to go with my Nico Vega.

They played the Roxy last night in LA, unfortunately I couldn’t attend. They play in LA all the time, but if they are in your town and you want to see American music at its best, then see this band.

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