by KCRW Host & DJ Raul Campos
What a second day! Raul Campos and dancin’ machine Brent Gordon blogging for you here – each day from LAMC in NYC.
Following a night of some much needed rest, we were (mostly) ready to roll. We obtained the rest of our equipment to do our live sessions from NYC and tried to grab some late breakfast across the street. We got a great taste of the early New York lunch crowd…with lines, lines, and lines…and umm…New York’s hospitable charm.
We got to work readying what will serve as our LAMC broadcasting studio for the next few days and headed down to the Mezzanine of the Hotel Roosevelt which was filled with lines of people registering for the event. Though it was busy when we popped down earlier, it was crazy now with only an hour until the Central Park Summerstage show kicked off.
We grabbed a cab and rolled over to Central Park, where there was already a line of folks waiting to get in. Raul opened the show introducing Ana Tijoux. Once her beats filled the air, the crowd started to grow very quickly. We recorded a few live tracks we’ll be playing for you when we interview Ana live from LAMC Friday night.
Spain’s El Guincho took the stage, and with the World Cup semi-final victory only a few hours won, the Spanish fans in the crowd were especially charged and sporting their team’s colors as they danced to his set.
We were sending so much live content back to KCRW, our freshly charged iPhone 4 was already drained, but the tech savvy maestros of Nortec Collective’s Bostich + Fusible were so awesomely generous they let us recharge it from their own laptop as they warmed up to take the stage! (check out our video interview at http://kcrw.com/lamc)
By now the park was packed with an amped crowd, and the light breeze made for a more forgiving temperature, but when we introduced Bostich & Fusible, the heat turned right back up! The masses went crazy thanks to B&F’s awesome visuals and stylized stage, (they used iPads to DJ part of their set). The night was so energized the crowd was a bit frustrated at Central Park’s hard curfew. But we didn’t have time to worry about it…We were back to the Hotel to set up our Studio and do our sound check so we would be ready to broadcast live tomorrow and then rolled over to The Mercury Lounge. We got there just in time to see Chico Mann take the stage to close out the showcase. After the set, we got to hang with the “Mann” and he handed us his new Album that we’ll debut Thursday night.
It was almost 2am, but that didn’t stop us from hitting the bangin’ Los Rakas show at the Santos Party House. The place was packed to the walls, and the brick building was bulging outward from the booming beats of this much hyped Panamanian duo!
Although the party didn’t even tap the breaks after their set, ended near 3am, we realized we had an even bigger day tomorrow which started early, so best to hit the sack, but only after we grabbed a late night bite at L’Express on Park Avenue…yum, hit the spot. Even still, we were way too amped after such an awesome day of music to hit the sack before 5am.
Your on the road street team,
Raul & Brent
Follow Raul: @RaulCampos on Twitter
Follow Brent: @luminar on Twitter