Concert: An Evening with Khruangbin
(And the No-See-Ums of Chucktown)
Happy Easter!
It has been a while since I wrote something outside of the ROTW sphere. Not in the sense that I am getting tired of it — only the opposite — but this week I was in Charlotte for less than 24 hours, leaving me no time to spin any records. We will be right back on track later this week, but for now I thought I’d do a short write-up on one of the reasons why I was gone this week — An Evening with Khruangbin, the three-piece, genre-bending band from Houston, Texas.
THE BAND
Khruangbin, which is Thai for “airplane”, traces its roots back to early 2004 in St. John’s Methodist church gospel band, where Mark Speer (guitar/vocals) and Donald “DJ” Johnson (drums/keyboard/vocals) first met. As they became friends, it became clear that Mark was more than just a guitarist — he was a musical fanatic, tracing interests to music from all over the world. Over the years Mark and DJ continued to play together, their musical soul continued to grow, and their friendship strengthened. Fast forward to 2007: Mark and Laura Lee “Leezy” Ochoa’s (bass/vocals) paths fortunately crossed through a mutual friend where they shared interests of not only Afghan music, but Middle Eastern architecture.
These friendships continued to mature, and Laura’s musical interests deepened. In 2009, Laura began to add bass to her repertoire (alongside guitar and piano) with guidance from Mark. Shortly after, Laura joined Mark in support of Yppah, an American electronic/shoegaze/psych artist. Inspired by their tour with Yppah, the two wanted to take music more seriously, then bringing DJ into the fold to create Khruangbin.
The band then took to “The Barn”, or the honorary fourth member — a literal barn in the small town of Burton, Texas to begin recording. Over the next few years they would release multiple EPs (all but เครื่องบิน are available to stream), before their first studio album, 2015’s “The Universe Smiles Upon You”, laying the foundation for a transdimensional band.
THE LEAD-UP
I originally was put onto Khruangbin by my good friend Adam Pickeral. He has an eclectic taste, one very similar to mine, and two days before Bonnaroo 2024 he sent a simple text.
Now I had heard them before, but like many:
Couldn’t place them from just their name.
Once looked up went, “Oh, yeah they did those projects with Leon Bridges”.
Well, thank you Adam for sending that text to check them out. By pure happen chance, I’d gotten separated from the group to catch a few acts prior to Khruangbin and ended up catching the tail end of their set. It was instantly tantalizing. Here, I found myself sitting in a giant pile of dirt, not a care in the world because there was this amazing groove like one I hadn’t felt in a while going on in front of me. People everywhere were dancing, and the summer night was absolutely perfect. This brief ending was the start to a new obsession.
Over the following months, I became enamored with their work. The music felt so fresh, so unique, and different than what I had been listening to. You know those periods where you just fall into a musical lull, with nothing new, this was my cure, a Pandora’s box of funky, fun music opened.
I knew I had to right the wrong of the shortened set and eventually got tickets with my friend Brett to see them in Atlanta, the weekend of September 26th. With barely a rain jacket in the car, I headed down to Atlanta late Wednesday night driving through a rainstorm, one I thought was just local. As I would soon find out, there was a serious hurricane on its way, Hurricane Helene. Just hours before doors were to open, the storms kicked up, and I got the unfortunate notification that the concert was going to be cancelled. While I was upset, I remember looking outside and thinking: “This actually seems pretty serious”. My concert being cancelled is only a miniscule drop in the bucket, for the loss and destruction that Hurricane Helene would bring was biblical and it was absolutely the right call to cancel.
Well, — remember I barely knew this was about to happen — in the moment, I did not know this. So while I was upset, I decided to continue my adventurous week and bought tickets for their show a few days later in Nashville. As Helene would come through, all of the typical roads I would take to get to the concert quickly became shut down, and some even were destroyed beyond recognition. So the concert would have to wait while much more serious matters were attended to. While our neighbors in Asheville and the Carolinas have made much progress, they could still use your support to help rebuild from this tragedy.
THE CONCERT
As fate would have it, middle of February this year, the final leg of the A La Sala tour was announced, complete with a date at Firefly Distillery in Charleston, South Carolina. Without much of a formal plan in place, I texted Adam, pitching him on the idea of a spring concert in CHS — later that week we both had tickets.
The distillery itself was right along the marsh, in a large field that served as both a small and medium venue. The back corner was complete with a collection of about seven local food trucks (shout out Roti Rolls), while the middle perimeter had drink vendors, and the right side rounded it out with the stage itself. It felt very akin to a mini festival, that feeling of freedom so prevalent, but so were the bugs. Luckily my friend George had warned me about the “No-see-ums”, a nasty critter that causes insane itching and are extremely hard to find, hence the name, and we were able to get some bug spray on board.
Not in an “Oh look at me, I’m cool” way, but Khruangbin fans are just so incredible. It was a breeze to pick up a conversation with anyone, no one was boisterously intoxicated, everyone wanting to talk about the beautiful day, and the awesome group we were about to see. Shakedown Street and the Dead are a cult following of legend, but the Khru have crafted a family complete with many fun quirks. More than the journeymen concert attendees, their concerts are full of fashionable outfits, paper airplanes adorned with the phrase “The Universe Shines Upon You”, and fans wearing cow print or the iconic black wigs that Laura and Mark wear in public. This feeling of community was felt from the random couple from Pittsburgh who had drove down for their fourth concert, to the group of parents who gave Adam and I glowstick bracelets, to the fellow Clemson alum seeing Khruangbin for her first time who bought the tickets on a whim. Leezy and DJ described it so well in this interview from Primavera Sound 2022.
Before the concert started, I happened to notice someone slowly taking in all the people, sneaking candid photos of the group. Adam quickly confirmed that this was indeed Jackie Lee Young, an award winning photographer from Austin, Texas who has been accompanying Khruangbin since 2021. I tried not to take too much of her time, but just wanted to become friends with her and show my appreciation for her eye! I got to hear a short story about their time in Australia, learned that she started taking photos at 10 years old, and even got my own picture with her. Definitely check out her work if you are unfamiliar.
To open the concert, Helado Negro soothed the crowd with his voice and dreamy catalog that included “Running” and “Best For You and Me”, two of my favorites. Accompanied with the setting sun and Firefly’s blackberry whiskey, the atmosphere was very relaxed. His set was the perfect length, long enough to warm the crowd’s dance moves up and I heard many around me asking who he was, and taking note for their own personal listening.
As the sun fully set, Khruangbin came out and proceeded to rock the night away. A La Sala came out last April, and their performances always consisted of two acts, split by a thunderstorm that felt like the sky had literally opened up above us. The first half is that fourth studio album in full, that Leezy described below:
"'A La Sala,' I used to scream it around my house when I was a little girl, to get everybody in the living room; to get my family together. That's kind of what recording the new album felt like. Emotionally there was a desire to get back to square-one between the three of us, to where we came from–in sonics and in feeling.” — Laura Lee
The album is rich with what made Khruangbin unique — their groovy bass line, with exciting guitar solos, kept together by DJ’s steady drums— but pulls back on the psychedelic experimentation, and brings it more towards a centralized sound, but one that absolutely works. One day we will absolutely dive into the album at length in a Record of the Week, but to see the steady entrance of “Fifteen Fifty-Three” then break open causing a wide cheer, transform to mellow swaying energy of “May Ninth”, all the way to uncontrollable dancing of “Hold Me Up (Thank You)”, it was really special. Very few concerts I’ve attended are structured in this chronological order, so to get not only the album in full, but a second half of hits and deeper cuts is just *chefs kiss*. To end the first half, Laura Lee and Mark relax from their dancing and musical kicks, to sit down lulling us into such deep concentration with “Les Petits Gris”. The thunderstorm begins and becomes so deafening that people all around, including myself, started looking up, thinking it might have actually been real.
The second half was a collection of their greatest hits including my number one song of 2024, “So We Won’t Forget”. I constantly have an internal tug of war at concerts with how much to record, but found myself constantly bargaining with myself this time for just one more short five second clip because they were that good. There was hardly a moment where I was not all out dancing, enjoying myself — and I wasn’t alone. Everyone was just so present, and a really respectful crowd, especially when someone unfortunately overheated causing a rare break in character from the band. They typically do not say more than a few words across the entire concert, but they made sure to get venue medics over to the person as soon as they noticed. Much respect to those who helped notify and for everyone looking out! Remember to drink your water y’all!
While there were many moments I will walk away with, the jam mid “Mr. White” was undoubtedly my favorite. It was a gross abundance of talent on display and one I just let it all out to. People were moving and shaking and when they fell back into the steady bassline of “Mr. White”, Adam and I just looked at each other in astonishment. Shoutout Adam’s mom for getting a clip of the back half of it.
After a semi-convincing departure complete with staff coming onto stage, the group came back for three more songs, ending with their signature “People Everywhere (Still Alive)”, the song that lets everyone know they have one last chance at the night.
Walking away, I immediately knew it was a top five concert ever for me, and after further review, I really feel it will stay up there. A night complete with love, dancing, laughter, and incredible music — it’s cheesy, but man, what more could really beat that? As I look at their final leg for this tour, I already have my eye on one more date, and I highly encourage you to take the time to go see them, especially if you don’t know their music, I’m sure you will walk away a fan.
Spread Love!
- Mercer
I just adore the way you write, I’d read your fuckin grocery list. This was a real delight