“Something about playing this psychedelic rock music makes me so thirsty,” says Angus Dowling, lead singer of Australian indie-psych band, Babe Rainbow.  The crowded dance floor of the sold out show at the Zebulon in Los Angeles cheers him on as he toasts the final performance of the US leg of the Babes’ tour. 

Relative to many other shows on this tour including a stop in Lake Perris for Desert Daze and a sold out Halloween show at the Music Box in San Diego for over 700 fans, this finale was a small, intimate, 250 person Tuesday night show.  This tour has been a great way for Babe Rainbow to share some of the songs from their new album, The Organic Band, including some of our favorites in Naxos and Inner Peace.  

For the final show of the tour, The Babes pulled all the stops to make this a unique event; there was a track with the tour’s opening band, Seventies Tuberide, a feature from a guitar player on the production team, and even a special guest appearance from Jaden Smith to perform his collaborated song with Babe Rainbow, Our Psychedelic Love Story.

While staying loose enough to joke around about their ‘new matching threads,’ The Babes were musically extremely tight.  Miles Myjavek, acting almost as the Wizard of Oz from behind his drum set, did an incredible job of effortlessly orchestrating the flow of the show while simultaneously captivating the crowd with his hypnotic rhythms on the drums. Then, as if to bring us back to lucidity, we hear a reverbed, echoing Angus saying, “it’s 6am and time for school,” as Elliot O’Rielly begins his iconic 7 note bass line from Johnny Says Stay Cool, and the crowd gets dancy. After an hour of fun, groovy music and an encore of features, the coolest breeze of them all, Jack “Kool Breeze'' Crowther with a solo serenade of a final goodnight song, melting our hearts with a solo guitar rendition of Butter. The Babe Rainbow is done with their US tour but be sure to check out their new album, The Organic Band.

Review & Photos by: Ben Hecht

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