Dayton Daily News, FRENCH BAND GIVES ITS ALL; WHAT A MIXTURE >>
DAYTON - Advance word on Les Yeux Noirs, brought to town Saturday night by Cityfolk, was that it combined Gypsy music with klezmer for an exotic middle-European blend. That was true enough, but it turned out that an evening with the popular French band resembled a two-hour parlor game that might've been called "Guess That Musical Influence!"
By the end of the show at the University of Dayton's Boll Theatre at Kennedy Union, the sold-out audience had been treated to dribs and drabs of Russian and Yiddish folk songs, American bluegrass and country, a fiddle riff that recalled a Virginia reel, contemporary Europop, Afropop rhythms, lots of jazz overtones, a few moments that sounded like part of a Brahms concerto, and more than a few moments of rock. Oh, and about two dozen things we probably missed.
The band took enormous, obvious delight in its musical sleight of hand, but never seemed bookish or studied in its cultural absorption and regurgitation. Les Yeux Noirs is a terrific live act, and part of the delight of its performance was the unruffled seamlessness with which it delivered its truly global music.
The group was founded by two fiddle-playing brothers, Eric and Oliver Slabiak, whose charming accents delighted the crowd nearly as much as their steady musical interplay - which, at one point, even had them sawing away at each other's violins.
The septet is rounded out by a guitarist, bassist, drummer, cello player and Marion Miu, who plays something called a cimbalon that is a cross between a xylophone and a hammer dulcimer, and whose otherworldly, Mideastern tones drew enthusiastic responses from the crowd.
The show was the last of this season's World Rhythms Series by Cityfolk and UD.
It got off to a late start when the band arrived in Dayton just an hour before showtime; Cityfolk's programming chief, Dave Barber, had to get on the phone to find a replacement for a guitar amp that didn't make it to the theater, and the Kennedy Union lobby filled with people who were anxious to get to their seats as the 8 p.m. showtime neared.
All turned out well, however. The band was on by 8:20 and sizzled through a nearly two-hour set that flew by at what seemed like breakneck, and very satisfying, speed.
02/09/04
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