EMEFE commands a huge presence with 11 members on stage and just about every instrument you can remember from Middle School Band in full sparkling representation. Javier Ramos spared no time getting the audience involved and made you feel like you were right at home listening to a group of friends – spectacularly talented friends – perform in your living room.
Bassist Doug Berns drives the band, closely resembling gritty 60s vocalist Joe Cocker with a curly millennial afro and intrinsic, spiritual bass lines, leading the band’s melodic grooves from center stage with his eyes closed, mouthing every sound he so carefully delivers from his instrument. Doug’s idiosyncratic movements somehow conduct the band to rise and fall, sonically and physically, stringing together group dance moves as they drop it to the floor.
EMEFE’s spectacular instrumentation, arrangements and communal vocal style harkens back to seminal influence Fela Kuti and the Afrobeat movement he pioneered. Their warm sound and soothing fluidity were a perfect compliment to the warm sticky temperatures and beading sweaty bodies that moved around all night until EMEFE ended their set with a groovy bang. – Ed Guardaro