Algiers at Big Ears

Tonight, live in Atlanta, Georgia, native sons Algiers perform at the venerable Drunken Unicorn. They headline a great lineup that includes Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Omni, and Mourning, featuring A Blkstar.  It's such a good lineup, in fact, that we're not going - too many bands for a weeknight and the doors don't even open until 8:30. We'd be lucky if Algiers even takes the stage before midnight, and we wouldn't get home until well past 1:00 a.m.

 

Not to worry, though - we just saw Algiers perform at Big Ears, a full-capacity, SRO performance at The Standard, a repurposed industrial space along the Knoxville railroad tracks.  

It wasn't the best Algiers performance we've seen, TBQH.  The band suffered from a poor sound mix at the club, and frontman Franklin James Fisher had to appeal several times to the soundman to turn up his monitor.  Also, bassist Ryan Mahan wasn't able to play on this tour, reportedly being detained in London, England for some undisclosed reason, and despite the able assistance of a guest bassist, the band seemed somehow off their usual game.  Still, an Algiers performance, even on an off day, is a special set and something to behold, as I could tell by the blown minds of many in the audience around me after their set was over.   

Today, we stumbled across this video of Algiers from Big Ears.  This isn't the performance that we saw at The Standard, but a "secret show" they performed the next day at The Pilot Light, a tiny, hole-in-the-wall space a couple blocks from The Standard and not announced to the public until an hour or so in advance of the show (we were at Bela Fleck and then later John Medeski during their secret show). Still,the set list and the performance are much the same, and if anything, they seem to be suffering fewer technical difficulties than they had to endure at The Standard.  So if, unlike us, you weren't able to attend Big Ears 2018, or if, like us, you're not going to their Drunken Unicorn set tonight, here's perhaps the next best thing - a faithful video of their secret show performance at the Pilot Light.