OK Go Gets Horny

Ok Go and Bonerama, 9:30 Club, Washington
February 2

recommended beverage:
a bottle of water. Hey, it gets hot in there
during sold out shows so I say just hydrate.

Few bands get the floor jumping at the 9:30 Club, but by the last half hour, people could not contain themselves. That's the allure of OK Go, four American lads in suits, who lit up the stage.
Many people simply know of the band from their treadmills routine for the "Here It Goes Again" video, but these guys have a whole eclectic repertoire, two albums worth of diverse material, and plenty of exuberance when they hit the stage.

In fact, one never knows what to expect at one of their shows. This time around, the show was a fundraiser for Sweet Home New Orleans, a group dedicated to bringing musicians back to the struggling city. Appropriately, the opening band was the New Orleans-based Bonerama, a horns-based funk band, who also played five songs with OK Go's singer Damian Kulash. That set included the David Bowie cover, "You're Not Alone," apt for the cause, as well as a rich-sounding, creative take on OK Go's "A Million Ways."

Bonerama's opening set rocked. Four trombones and a tuba led the charge and, as a testament to their diverse musical influences, the lads covered Sabbath and Zeppelin with a trombone emulating the vocal line and an electric guitar roaring behind the horn section. As my friend aptly put it, "They went from JazzFest to OzzFest in one song."

For the encore, OK Go came out, backs to the crowd, with bright lights flashing on their suit jackets. The lights swirled for a while until they each landed on the right letter to spell the band's name, and then a casino slot machine sound filled the room. The two-song encore put the crowd into a total frenzy. They ended with "Do What You Want," but the crowd clearly wanted more.

Starting February 5, look for a Bonerama-OK Go collaboration on ITunes. All proceeds go to help rebuild New Orleans.