Indigenous: Native Sons Of the Allman Brothers
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"Move over, Rover, let him take over," cracked a concertgoer outside the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis on Monday night. He was referring to Mato Nanji, founder and leader of the Native American blues-rock band Indigenous. Fronting a tight, organ-powered quintet and demonstrating his great prowess on lead guitar, Nanji nearly tore the strings off his Stratocaster while paying tribute to Jimi Hendrix.
Indigenous is no longer the family affair it once was. The band's lineup was overhauled recently. Slide guitarist Kris Lager and keyboardist Jeremiah Weir now play a prominent role, so much so that the set Monday night often evoked the Allman Brothers. Frequently trading solos -- contrasting brawny, reverberating Strat tones with piercing, bottleneck flourishes -- Nanji and Lager orchestrated a series of Allmanesque crescendos with help from Weir, bassist A.C Wright and drummer John Fairchild.
Still, Nanji's strong ties to Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas legacy couldn't have been more apparent during the fast-paced concert, which was largely devoted to showcasing original tunes drawn from the band's new album, "Broken Lands." Not unlike Vaughan, Nanji is a sucker for knotty low-end riffs, thick funk-chord vamps and explosive shifts in dynamics, not to mention the occasional quick-fingered digression -- playing long passages with just his fretting hand, for example.
There was nothing flashy about Nanji's vocals, though. Straightforward and soulful, his singing was consistently expressive, especially during performances of "Place I Know" and other songs that reflected his cultural roots and concerns.
-- Mike Joyce
