Nigerian rock guitar great Mdou Moctar and the band that shares his name will make their rabidly awaited return to the Hudson Valley on October 5, when the quartet performs at the Bearsville Theater in support of their newest album, Funeral for Justice. Those who’ve seen the band as they’ve conquered packed smaller area venues during their visits these last few years already know it will be an amazing show. Those who didn’t but enjoy life-affirming music that rocks as hard as Hendrix or Sabbath, makes you move your booty like P-Funk, and trips you out like Ravi Shankar or Coltrane and may have wondered what the ruckus has been about — well, this here’s your chance.
In addition to Moctar on vocals and lead guitar, the band also includes rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim, and American bassist and producer Mikey Coltun. Recorded locally in a rented house in 2022, Funeral for Justice is being hailed as Mdou Moctar’s most explosive album yet; more representative of the band’s live performances than their previous studio albums. Fiery not only in the passionate music itself, the record is also charged lyrically, with the leader lashing out in his native Tamasheq language at the colonial history of Africa. Among Mdou Moctar’s most evangelic fans are Jack White and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. “Us guitar players in the West, we all have the same base vocabulary, the same handful of stereotypical licks,” Hammett told the New York Times. “But Mdou’s music, it’s almost free of that stuff. And because of that, it sounds more spontaneous. It sounds fresh. It’s amazing.”
Mdou Moctar will perform at the Bearsville Theater in Bearsville on October 5 at 7pm. The Messthetics will open. Tickets are $34.65 and $53.15.
