[ATTENDED: May 19, 2019] Animals as Leaders
My Brother-in-law, Ben told me about Animals as Leaders and I was rather shocked that I had never heard of Tosin Abasi.
Tosin is from Washington D.C. (his parents are from Nigeria). He is self taught and has been playing since about 2000. He plays primarily the 8-string electric guitar and his fingers (on both hands) are all over the fretboard. Basically, he’s a guy you want to watch closely.
He started the all-instrumental Animals as Leaders in 2009. The band is a hybrid of many different genres: heavy metal, prog, jazz, classical. Or as he put it: “Thanks for listening to our weird ass music for the last ten years.”
I was also intrigued that right after talking about them I saw that they were coming into Philly a few weeks later. So I immediately grabbed a ticket.
Indeed, this tour was celebrating the tenth anniversary of the debut, self-titled album. I assumed that that meant they’d be playing the whole album but they didn’t. They played about half of the debut and about half of their newest release (from way back in 2016).
I feel about this show that it was the most disappointing experience of an amazing show that I’ve had in a long time. (more…)
