In a brazen act of indifference towards usual notions of patriotism, I went to see Rachid Taha tear up Central Park's Summerstage this past weekend. It was my second time seeing him perform, and like the 2005 gig at Bowery Ballroom, the electricity level was palpable from the moment he hit the stage.

Rachid is a French-born Algerian who, along with his band, plays a discordant blend of harsh guitar rock and propulsive, middle-eastern dance music. More importantly, he delivers it all with the spectacle of a full-on arena rock show, even if he's performing in a mid-size club, or as was the case this weekend, to a few hundred soggy enthusiasts armed with umbrellas and seven dollar Coronas. Rachid's performances are much like what I imagine a U2 concert to be like, what with his larger-than-life on stage presence, and the obvious deity-like status his hardcore fans have ascribed to him.

And amazingly, it all works perfectly. He's a natural born rock star who flirts with the audience en masse (in spite of his limited spoken English abilities) and clearly gets off on riling any crowd up to critical levels. (It takes a lot to get me to pogo dance these days, but I'd be lying if I said that the wife and I weren't jumping around like retards as the set neared its frenzy-like conclusion. And we only had two each of the aforementioned seven-dollar-Coronas...) Does the idea of covering "Rock the Casbah" in 2008 sound like a bad idea to your musical sensibilities? Yes? Mine too, but trust me -- Rachid Taha's version not only destroys the crowd every time, but is totally re-worked (as all good covers ought to be) into a creation that's utterly his own.

Interestingly, Rachid also has the whole Serge Gainsbourg ugly-hot-guy thing going on to the point that he seems to cross all barriers of sexual orientation. The crowd's clearly heterosexual men -- even those armed with wives, girlfriends, or the accordant offspring -- got the same melty look in their eyes that the attending women did when confronted with the whole of Rachid's considerable swagger. I've run into this kind of phenomenon before, but not to this degree since watching clearly infatuated (male) friends commit public stupidities in the presence of the Fluid's John Robinson. (OK, I did it a couple of times too.) I choose to think of it as lending further firepower to the complete experience that is a live Rachid Taha concert, and would urge anyone to make his shows a priority on their summer concert calendars.

By: Houari B..