What a week! I got home from work and was thankful to have made it through with my sanity intact. The chances of me doing anything outside of geekish coding didn’t look too good, but I did have the option of attending a midnight concert at SOBs. The band in question was one of my favorites: Antibals Afrobeat Orchestra. To be honest it was touch and go for a while there, but the picture below should be proof enough of the decision I made.

After sucking down some of that never say die mentality that would get me through the night, I began my adventure into the wintery darkness. I was in line outside the club by 11:30, lining up in queue behind a group of very energetic, French-speaking people. They were running amok on the sidewalk, groin thrusting into each other and taunting each other playfully in both French and English. And at all the times there were the chirping whistles they had brought with them, playing in line and giving it a very Carnival feel (the one in Brazil, that is). They were a show onto themselves and made waiting in the cold that much more bearable.

Finally got into SOBs and situated myself in the jam-packed mob surrounding the stage. The flow of people past me was non-stop. At some point I couldn’t tell if they were new people or just the same people wearing different hats to try and throw me off. Then I realized that no one would be out to screw with my head here so I should just write about the music, damnit!

OK, message received.

Antibals took the stage around 12:30, and the whole troupe was in fine form. The sound quality at SOBs is always good, and they were feeding the amps well. And for us living beings, there was lots of crowd interaction worked in as well. Big fan of the rhythmic clapping and sing-along sessions right here. They were playing lots of cuts from there most recent release “Who is this America?“, including “Big Man”, “Elephant” and an absolutely psychotic rendition of “Indictment”. In honor of the holidays the likes of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch were indicted along with Bush, Condi Rice, Rummy the like. If that last line confuses you then give the song a listen. It’ll all make sense after that — promise.

Their encore was an insanely long version of “Who Is This America Dem Speak Of Today?”, which had to be in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 minutes. And this is after two hours of non-stop Anitbalas, mind you. The crowd just ate it up. My favorite reaction of the night came from one particularly well dressed black gentleman near where I was. He was dressed to kill: clean fedora, crisp suit, the whole nine. Now picture that man with eyes wide as saucers and his jaw dusting the tops of his dress shoes. That’s the kind of performance it was. It had to be after 3 am by the time the band left the stage for the last time, and I was lucky to still be standing after all that.

So what do I do? I take a breather on the subway and go galavanting around midtown of course! I was just not feeling tired and while it was cold out there was no wind, so I decided to do some tourist-free sightseeing. So much better to see Times Square without having to use a machete to cleave a path through the out-of-towners, especially considering my shell-shocked state. There were the usual cast of wanderers about, including the prerequisite drunken frat boys. They were assaulting the world with their singing and finding interesting uses for a traffic cone. Gee, who would ever have imagined that you could use a cone as a megaphone? And how about using it as a club to hit each other with? Brilliant! I laughed a little at their antics, but then realized that this is the kind of revelry that leads to wiper blades being ripped off of cars.

There was a Starbucks open and some hot chocolate sounded like a good idea before the night was ended, so I headed in for a brief reprieve from the chill and some liquified goodness. The corporate offices probably aren’t going to like hearing this, but the clerk gave me the drink free of charge. I was kind of stunned from the act of kindness and barely got the thank you out of me before wandering from his store and down to the Port Authority and a Sphinx bus home.

So to recap:

• The city: God bless the nightlife!
• The holidays: Don’t be too shocked by acts of kindness.
• The booze: Some people could do with a little less of it.
• The music: “Who is this America” should be required listening. Period.
• The reporter: Dead tired and about to crash in his bed as he writes this line.

Two or three good pics and a few video clips on the way. Keep your fingers crossed that I get everything I want to done on Sunday and you guys will have new stuff to look at while “working” on Monday.