One of my favorite shows I attended last week was “The Comet is Coming” live at Barboza.  I had originally bought tickets for this show because I had seen a poster for the event and thought it looked cool.  I went in with no real expectation of what I was about to see.  The only other research I had done prior to this show was I saw a post about how they had played a Boiler Room show in London, and watched maybe a minute or two of it.  I wanted to be surprised when I attended the event.

When I arrived at Barboza, J Justice had already begun his set.  J Justice did great as an opener.  His DJ set involved both vinyl and digital elements, intertwining both jazz and dance records.  When he wrapped I walked up and complimented his set, and he told us that he was a night DJ at 91.3 (radio station – KBCS).  Then it was time for “The Comet is Coming”.

“The Comet is Coming” blew my mind.  Knowing they had played a Boiler Room show, I knew there would be opportunities to dance.  What I didn’t expect was what sounded like a mix of Jazz, Electronic Dance Music, and Prog Rock.  Really I would liken the experience to seeing a group playing the score to a great sci fi adventure, but also seeing how the crowd was reacting and playing off the mood in the audience.  The almost stutter style saxophone playing of Shabaka Hutchings was amazing live and it played well off of Dan Leavers (keyboardist) and Maxwell Hallett (drummer).  Leavers use of keyboards were what I would describe as a mix of EDM but with moments of slow levity, while Hallett on the other hand played very jazz style drums in that he read where each musician was going and played along that flow.

Overall it was a great experience and I highly recommend checking this band out live.  If Jazz in it’s early heyday were musicians from different genres kind of playing and working off one another, eventually blending into a new genre, this felt like a next step in that evolution.  The music being performed by “The Comet is Coming” deserves some sort of rock opera style music video, or even a great treatment in a laser light show style platform.