Green Apple Music Festival | Akasha, the Drastics at Double Door, 4/20/07

On Friday night, my troupe and I set out to attend the Green Apple Music Festival show that was going on at the Double Door — Juice and the Machine with the Drastics and Akasha.

I’ve got some friends in Akasha so I’ve been fortunate enough to watch this band grow from something impromptu at a weekly gig at a BBQ joint to a band working to fuse together rock, hip hop, reggae, and garage blues into one cohesive sound — something that actually came through quite nicely at their opening set of the night. The band is still in the really early phases of their growth and it was killer to see them land a nice opening slot at a local festival. I expect plenty of good things for them in the future if they keep up the good work.

They just put together an EP of sorts and they’ve got some downloads at their MySpace page for anyone that’s interested.

Akasha – Ites [mp3]

Next up was the Drastics, and given the sample below, I was expecting fantastic things.

The Drastics – roughmix [mp3]

Problem is, The Drastics lacked a certain stage presence that was hugely necessary at a show of this nature. I thought Akasha was dynamic and entertaining, and the Drastics seemed to push that feeling to the backseat. At one point, I actually saw the trombone player yawn — never a good sign — so I think my opinion of them was highly critical as a result.

I’ll admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the music but given their lack of energy, I would have much rather been jamming out to the Drastics on my living room surround-sound stereo system.

Juice and the Machine was only about two songs in before we left largely unimpressed. They seemed a little cheesy in their stage approach — they did a special “intro” that featured the band jamming on “National Anthem” by Radiohead, which segued into “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” (???) — and we decided at that point that we had enough.

All in all, it was a great show front to back because I had loads of fun. Akasha sounded great, the Drastics sounded great but lacked panache, and Juice and the Machine confused me — good times.