“Just walk in like you own the place,” Ozomatli guitarist and singer Raul Pacheco tells me. His advice seems like the perfect all-purpose approach to the music biz, because that’s exactly what Ozo have done, with their seamless pan-Latino sound and political stance that courageously kick the door wide open to increasing popularity, regardless of whether potential fans appreciate the intricacies of traditional Latin music or leftist activism.
The House Of Blues has a balcony and private boxes overlooking the groundlings, but Ozo typically confound these divisions by marching right into the floor crowd from behind, with percussionist Justin “Nico” Porée whistling like a drum major and every Ozo rattling away on bells and pads. Ozomatli launch right into “Dos Cosas Ciertas,” from their new album Embrace The Chaos, and despite the sprawling array (with a drummer, DJ, MC, horns/woodwinds, two percussionists, bassist, and guitarist totaling 10 band members), the sound is tight and focused, juicing the audience into Latin couples-dancing and hip-hop pogos. The seeming chaos of on-stage antics (from pop-locking to manic booty shaking) erupts at times into synchronized salsero spins, jumps, and slides, but it is as seamless as the band’s segues from drum ‘n’ bass to son Cubano, with DJ Spinobi’s skratch accents and Asdru honking on a conch shell to Kanetic’s fluid flow.
Throughout the show, Ulises switches from tenor to bari-sax and then clarinet, later dueling on the Mexican six-stringed requinto with Raul on the eight-stringed jarana guitar from Veracruz. The band proceeds to wear the crowd down with 17 cuts from the new disc and their self-titled debut, taking time for sizzling solos from every member and to sing “Happy Birthday” to Jiro, who is 34 today and the oldest Ozo.
Towards the end of the gig, Wil-Dog steps to the mic and dedicates the show to the World Trade Center victims, adding that the band is against terrorism as “national policy” and sending 19-year-olds to bomb the shit out of innocents, against attacks on Muslims, against state-sponsored terror. If anyone is heckling, they are drowned out by enthusiastic cheers, and the band gets the audience to chant “Ozomatli ya se fue!” (“Ozomatli is out!”) for the drum exit that lasts almost 15 minutes, with a conga line and New Orleans funeral-style rendition of the hokey-pokey, and I can feel the whole stage bouncing from the floor stomping. Next to me, a House Of Blues techie says, “That’s the coolest thing I ever seen, to take a band out into the audience while they’re still playing — you can’t beat that!” The audience agrees, as they get to slap five on los Ozos, who don’t really see themselves as unapproachable rock stars anyway. They are “the people’s band,” they claim, and they continue to back up their words modestly and fearlessly.
4 October 2001, Illinois Entertainer
