Moon Taxi’s venue show is described as more than words, but I shall do my best, too. I have seen Moon Taxi at a festival before, and I enjoyed their skin-deep music that seemed to make the cells in the listeners’ bodies groove all night. That’s exactly what everyone is doing on a Thursday night at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio! The Newport Music hall is what I call “a fancy hole in the wall,” only because of it’s duality style that is between the spectrum of a music shack in the city and the theatre quarter of a mansion. Since the building itself used to be the Agora Ballroom in the 1970’s, there are mysterious and beautiful music-mojo breathing from the engraved marble. To me, this is the perfect place to see Moon Taxi’s performance, so far. Wink!
After the opening act, there was a longer wait for the crew to set up the stage than I’m normally used to, but when they started up the show, I didn’t mind the wait. I noticed the quality of the new aged light fixtures and instinctively knew there was going to be an extreme light show–still, I didn’t see the essentially assigned features of the lights, coming. The lights helped carry along the theme of each song, and ultimately, the show– from beams shooting out into the balcony seats and the moon– to stripping it all down to one spotlight. All of it emphasised the point to the show.
The real magic came from the fellas on stage: Tyler Ritter, Spencer Thomson, Tommy Putnam, Trevor Terndrup and Wes Bailey. All together, they know themselves, the full picture of their band, and their music. Their latest album, Let The Record Play, is very positive. Not in a candy-moan way, but the meaning and perspective one has on life. Furthermore, they delivered these messages with intelligent mastery of their respective instruments. I witnessed this live at the Newport, when the band members took some time to do some not so typical solos. My jaw dropped when I heard and saw the connection between music and musician. The audience was given the pleasure of listening and seeing the musicians play to the moon, and ironically enough, seeing it meant that they were our taxi, to transcend to the moon.
Connect with Moon Taxi(click icons):
Review by Lotus Reigns, RockRevolt Contributor
Photos by Patrick Desmond, RockRevolt Photographer
