Seeing a live performance is always special for me, but seeing King Sunny Ade perform live (on the San Francisco stop of his 2005 world tour) truly seemed like a one-in-a-lifetime experience.

A sold out crowd of over 1000 packed into The Fillmore, whose stage was beautifully decorated with ceiling to floor swaths of indigo patterned cloth ( - a nice touch that differed from the typical (generic) black backdrop that these concerts typically have.)

The show started promptly with the Obi Osadebe - son of the Nigerian highlife legend Osita Osadebe. Backed by pre-recorded tracks and a small band (rhythm guitar, drums, bass guitar), Obi sang, grooved and danced to many of his fathers classics and several that were new to me. After each song, he only offered a simple “thank you” in response to the applause while staring into the sheet music for the next track. Overall, his performance was good, but more stage charisma would be nice.

After a short interlude that included some “african music” from the house p.a., short speeches and a raffle, the lights dimmed - and the show was about to begin!

The band danced onto the stage one by one, picking up their instruments & starting the groove. The first five were the drummers… 2 talking drums, 1 hand drum, 1 conga, 1 drum set! They were followed by the rest of the band, keyboards, guitars and singers and finally Sunny Ade for a total of 13 strong.

Their show was everything I could have imagined… great sound, musically strong, lively and playful. They played a broad range of tunes both old & new, fast & slow and had the entire place dancing from start to finish.

At one point around 11:00, some aunties (who must just have arrived) made their way towards the front in full traditional gear, complete with 10 gallon headdresses that cleared a path in front & behind them. These headdresses were so big & strong that I practically left the place w/ a face full of scratches even though they were dancing no closer than 2-3 feet away!

Another great point in the show was when the dancers performed… One dancer came out with her back facing the stage. The music died down & Sunny started into some slow, sultry, blues-styled solo guitar. The dancer wound her bottom to the rhythm which slowly increased in pace, faster & faster until it was a full blown makosa-tempo jam! Each of the three dancers did this one at a time much to the delight of the crowd… and finished up with all three of them going at once! That was a great crowd-pleaser that added to the fun-factor of the show.

Any such show (party) wouldn’t be complete without some spraying and indeed there was some - these aunties were the first to start it off when they jumped up from the crowd to get it going.

This show was a real treat… everything about it was practically perfect. I can’t wait until Sunny Ade tours again, hopefully next year if not sooner!

Check out one of my favorite Sunny Ade tracks - something my father would describe as Sunny’s “psycadelic-sounding” Juju - released on the “Syncro System” LP [1983, Island Records]

p.s. Big thanks to to FJ for the great pictures!

King Sunny Ade and his African Beats, April 22, 2005

(link to photos)

King Sunny Ade and his African Beats - Syncro_System

(media offline)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 at 1:56 am and is filed under juju. You can skip to the end and leave a response.