Manic Focus brought out the live band for an explosive portion to his Sowing My Zone tour at the Concord Music Hall in Chicago on last Friday, March 18th. The funk masterminded paid tribute to his second home with a relentless stream of good vibes and better music.
Statik started things off by slobbering his funky guitar licks over some righteous bass. The young up and comer is becoming the go-to opener for events from All Good Records, he recently opened up for Freddy Todd in February. The Chicago native previewed a remix he did for Artifakts before handing the stage off to Borahm Lee of Break Science. Lee took the funk to an ethereal level by combining chill beats with dreamy synthesized keys. Lee\’s tunes seemed to send a wave of vibes throughout the crowd. During his set he dropped a new collab from Break Science and Brasstracks, as well as a new track he made with Woo Park. Up next was Artifakts and he definitely turned it up a notch. The producer from Milwaukee dropped tracks of a funkstep variation and made sure everyone had their head knocking. He was assisted by a live drummer which perfectly emphasized Artifakt\’s hip hop/trap tunes and then it was time to set up for the Manic Focus live band.
Having seen Manic Focus without the live band many times in the past, I was excited to see what the live instruments would add to his set. The entire ensemble was composed of Manic Focus on production, Borahm Lee on Keys, The Heard Horns on Trumpet and Trombone, Jacob Barinholt on Drums, and Statik on Guitar. The energy filled the room as Jmac took the stage with his soldiers of sound and what ensued was a beautiful combination of sounds that were brought together by Manic Focus\’ bass-wavy tracks. Every song was complemented by the plethora of instruments and it brought the whole crowd into a dancing frenzy. The Manic Focus live band is definitely a sound to be heard.
Photo: Silver Wrapper
