Last week The Bad Plus performed a late night show at the beautiful Teatro Lara in the centre of Madrid. Despite a starting time of 23:00 hours, the place was almost full and lots of media could be seen. Once on stage the Plus started with ‘Pound For Pound’, a true beauty of a song and continued mostly with either repertoire from their last CD ‘Never Stop’ or with new songs, which will be feature on the new disc they expect to release in the fall. One of these new tracks is ‘Re-Elect That’, a great Ethan Iverson composition, another one is ‘Wolf Out’, which on the night they dedicated to their friend Wulf, which I thought was a very nice gesture, as it is an amazing and powerful, drum driven piece.
This trio is so tight, has such a unique approach to their music, powerful and subtle at the same time, sometimes soft and almost vulnerable, then again almost sounding like a full orchestra and rocking in the best sense of the word. Always challenging themselves and their listeners, but making them smile or open their eyes in astonishment. The show ended with 2 encores and a standing ovation – long past midnight and then the trio started to sign CD’s for waiting fans, despite having to get up at 6:30 am to go to the next gig …
And their new material is again a step forward and some of the best music they have recorded. By the way, the title of the new album is: Made Possible.
