On Friday, April 29th, my homegirl Nicole and I went to see Balkan Beat Box. Who is Balkan Beat Box, you ask? I didn’t know either, but Nicole showed me her blog from her earlier BBB experience, and I was interested! Specifically by the words about their show, “It seemed as if the whole building was vibrating.” Sounds like a party, right?

First, we met up at Ben’s Next Door, where I got crab mac and cheese. Check out the huge lump crab meat!

Then, we headed straight over to 9:30 Club for the 11 pm show. BBB weren’t really set to come on until midnight, we found out. So we jammed to the DJ spinning Middle Eastern techno. It actually sounded pretty good.

And then…Balkan Beat Box! I remember Nicole mentioning the band playing a ton of instruments, like a clarinet, sax, bass, congos, etc., and there they were!

Although some songs didn’t have lyrics, BBB had the whole club rocking right out of the gate. Their sound is like a really funky 50s party band plus Middle Eastern techno, bass, congos, cowbell, marachas, and the all-important clarinet. Then, other songs sound like reggae!

You couldn’t help but dance!

Nicole and I were loving Balkan Beat Box.

People LOVE Balkan Beat Box. As you can see here.

The ladies, however, loved the Middle Eastern frontman. I thought they were going to rip his clothes off. And he was eating it up.

Was it because he opened his shirt or because he’s multi-talented and could sing/rap and play drums?

An hour later, the bouncers finally let the ladies (and other fans) on stage to dance with the band. It was such a funky good time.

They even returned for an encore, with at least five more songs! It was such a party in that place. See for yourself.