Amoeba Berkeley's packed, high energy, and hella fun in-store performance by Ivory Coast singer Fely Tchaco on Saturday evening (June 2nd), proved just what a wonderful musical gift to the world the Amoeba Music in-stores are.
And Saturday's extended concert, which was part of the larger Berkeley World Music Festival that ran all day Saturday in the Telegraph Ave/Peoples Park area, was extra wonderful. As the happy guy beside me at Amoeba on Saturday, in the aisle nestled between the reggae CDs and the used jazz vinyl, enthused at the one hour, five minute mark in the energetic show, "I've never seen any show at Amoeba Music that went for longer than an hour. This is unusual. And I come to Amoeba in-stores all the time. They're great!" Indeed they are great and Saturday's show, that culminated in lots of audience members jumping up on stage to dance along with the band, was extra great since it ran for a full hour and a quarter which was especially long because it was part of the festival. Now in its ninth year the Berkeley World Music Festival included Peoples Park stage headliner Maria Muldaur and her Bluesianna Band whose set finished at 6pm. And afterwards many of the Muldaur audience exited the park & headed down the half block to filter into Amoeba and fill all the remaining open spaces in the aisles of the big record store to catch Fely's great set.
Hailing from the Ivory Coast, Fely made a point of representing the music and languages of many other African countries although only scratching the surface since, as she noted, "There are so many countries in the African continent." Before launching into the positive message encore song, that included the singalong
refrain "Peace… World Peace" with Fely leading everyone in the house to throw up the peace sign, the African singer stressed to the multi-ethnic crowd how we are all one (human) race and that if stubborn individuals refuse to get along with others that they will be left behind. Amen!
