Easy Star All-Stars

Flights & Sounds of Summer

September 26, 2009, 8:00 PM
Free Admission, $8 Parking (Map)

Lonely Hearts Dub Band, Dub Side of the Moon, RadioDread… the Easy Star All-Stars are the very soul of dub reggae. Almost anybody can sing along to their favorite tunes, but only an artist can take something familiar and make it entirely their own, exploring the heart of the work and taking it to a new and different place. That’s what you’ll hear on the “Lonely Hearts” tour, plus Easy Star originals in our reggae fest conclusion to the summer concert series.

Perhaps the All-Stars were not the first band to sit around and wonder, “What if we played Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ reggae dub style?” but they were certainly the first to follow through on the notion. 2003’s “Dub Side of the Moon” was anything but the one-joke, one-dimensional enterprise it might have been in other hands. Instead, the All-Stars — whose members are the cream of NYC’s studio and club reggae players –crafted a vivid, inventive island-ized reinterpretation of the classic rock standard. In a small echo of the Pink Floyd album’s perennial chart success, “Dub Side of the Moon” has remained on Billboard’s reggae chart for more than five years.

Easy Star All-Stars followed suit with a reggae reworking of Radiohead’s “OK Computer,” dubbed “RadioDread,” which spent nearly two years on the charts and was praised by Radiohead’s members. This year the All-Stars tackled that most classic of classic rock albums, the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” with their version naturally titled “Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band.”

The Easy Star All-Stars will be performing selections from all three albums in their Great Park performance. If you’ve seen the band live or their concert videos, you know their show will be a party that will keep you happy until next summer rolls around. Artist Website