Loop in Motion Festival

psychotronics
Loop in Motion
Market in the Loop Performance Stage
University City, MO
Saturday, October 6, 2007
General Admission
free

Sometimes Roy and I don't have to travel to foreign countries for a music festival. They take place right in our own neighborhood.

I love my neighborhood. After living growing up in a big city like Philadelphia, moving to the suburbs of St. Louis was culture shock. Two years ago, we moved again, from unincorporated West St. Louis County to the Loop neighborhood in University City. We have concert venues, a movie theater, restaurants, record stores all in walking distance. I live on a cross-street of Delmar Blvd, home to most of these amenities, which was recently named one of the great streets in America.

http://www.planning.org/greatplaces/streets/delmarloop.htm

This weekend was the Loop in Motion festival. It's a two day festival for live music, arts, and dancing. There are multiple outdoor stages in plazas and on closed-off streets. We looked up the bands online, and one in particular looked interesting - psychotronics listed King Crimson, Gong, and Aphrodite's Child among their influences. The next band could be good too - Logos described themselves as a fusion of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

We had dinner at Blueberry Hill on Friday and picked up some more information about the happenings. Roy went on a walk that night and saw some of the art exhibits. We were busy on Saturday earlier in the day, but made it back home in time for the 5:00 show.

It was still pretty hot out. Psychotronics was playing outside of the Market in the Loop. Thankfully, it was between two buildings, so there are shade and a wind tunnel. We got there in time for the performance earlier in the schedule - the Shaolin Lohan Pai Lion Dance Troupe. I'm glad we caught that. This is the traditional Chinese Lion Dance with guys dressed in satin ornamented lion/dragon costumes dancing around. It was striking to watch the colors moving around and shocking when one of the dancers shook his headpiece right in front of me.

We moved up. There were about 20 seats and some picnic benches. Roy figured we could snag seats during the changeover. Sure enough, you'd expect the lion dance to be more kid friendly, and a mom and child left from seats in the front row. We sat down.

Right in front of the sewer grate.

Thankfully, another family got up further away from the grate and closer to the incense vendor, so we moved over there. The band was still setting up, and I ran into the food court next store to buy some drinks. They started when I was still inside. The band is a four piece, with bass, guitar, drums, and saxophone. Roy said they started by all playing simultaneously and making a lot of noise. It drove some people away, but then they went into a tune.

I thought they were great. Instrumental music you could dance to, memorable melodies, good mix of improv and structured material. The first song sounded like it could have fit on King Crimson's Lizard album. Later on, I would not have been surprised at all if they threw in Schizoid Man as a cover. There was one track Roy and I thought we recognized, but when they announced the song title, I wasn't familiar with it. Can't remember it now.

The highlight of the show was the audience reactions. Roy and I were bopping along in our seats. To me, this is dance music, it has a good groove. Forget that stuff with the repetitious bass notes. There were some little boys in the audience who danced for most of the set. It was adorable and by the end, even the band members were watching them and smiling. Some teen-aged boys sat next to me and seemed to be enjoying it, but they only lasted a song. Two older women sat down at our row and stayed for the rest of the set.

It was a short set, about 45 minutes. If I had any complaints, I thought they used too much distortion in the sax and guitar. The sax player was also the frontman, and he made a joke of talking into the heavily distorted sax microphone. For a free show, unknown band, just a half mile walk from home, you can't do much better. The band had a CD out, but we're not really in a new-music-acquire mode right now.

We thought about grabbing a quick bite to eat at the Market in the Loop food court next door and then seeing the next band Logos, but we ended up going down the street to Cicero's for dinner. We ate outdoors, and I could sort of hear them play from a block away. They were done by the time we walked past. Roy and I went on a little walk of the Loop and then came back home.