MOG

Saw the band Indigenous tonight, in a club setting. Indigenous is a hard rocking blues band from South Dakota, made up of 4 siblings. Or at least that's what I was expecting. Instead I find out that the band had decided to pursue different projects, and Indigenous was now Mato Nanji on guitar, and 3 other guys. Sitting at the show, watching the band walk out and realizing it wasn't what I expected, I was bummed.

Until they started to play.

Folks, Mato is the real deal. This is one great guitar player. Very heavily influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan, you could close your eyes at times and swear you were listening to Stevie Ray. But this isn't an SRV revival show, Mato is an incredible performer in his own right. High energy player, thoughtful and inventive licks, and much more mature as a player than he was last time I saw him 5 years ago.

On this tour I was surprised to find him backed up by members of The Kris Lager Band, a blues band from my 'hood. The chemistry was excellent. They had fun, traded licks all night, and fed off each others, and the crowd's, energy. The crowd was into it, the band was into it, and the result was spectacular.

As can be expected, they played a lot of songs from their new album, "Chasing The Sun". I don't own it yet, it's said to be softer and less "edgy" then other Indigenous albums. But in concert, they're not going to put down anything without an edge. Mato turned out guitar licks on every song that had me shaking my head in amazement. He was on fire. After one particularly blistering solo, he looked at the fingertips of his left hand, smiled, and just shook his hand to restore circulation. And it wasn't just Mato, Kris Lager cooked on his Fender, the keyboard player added some tasty licks on his Hammond, and the drummer was off the hook in intensity. Towards the end of the show, the keyboad player says to the audience "If you can't tell, we're having the time of our lives". Mato grinned and nodded. It was pretty obvious to the crowd.

The last song was a cover of "Red House" that literally peeled the paint off the club walls. It was smoking.

Maybe we caught these guys on a spectacular night, but given their chemistry I don't think so. I have a feeling you'd get a similar quality show anytime. And that's good news for those who haven't seen them yet.

Bottom line: Absolutely in my top 10 all time shows, and maybe in the top 5. The small venue, great crowd, and band enjoyment all contributed to the high rating.

You can find a schedule of dates on Mato's My Space page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=9339165