The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter walked onto the Factory in Deep Ellum stage Friday night to ecstatic roars, making certain what had been widely rumored beforehand — that he’d be making an appearance alongside Khruangbin to perform a few of their collaborations (a Khruangbridges sighting, to borrow a popular social media portmanteau).
During the encore, Fort Worth and Houston joined forces for two songs, running through “Chocolate Hills,” a track from their forthcoming Texas Moon EP and the title track from 2020’s Texas Sun EP. Bridges’ honeyed vocals laid easily across the elastic, exquisite sounds conjured by Khruangbin, whetting the appetite for an entire evening of such cross-pollination.
As Bridges waved to the audience and departed, guitarist Mark Speer said what many in the room were likely thinking: “It sounds so good when he sings.” Speer adjusted his instrument, and the trio eased into “Time (You and I),” once again taking the sold-out room for a sonic ride unlike much else emanating from the Lone Star State.
Speer, along with his bandmates, bassist Laura Lee and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, spent roughly 90 minutes Friday taking the audience on an odyssey befitting the band’s exotic name, pronounced krung-bin and which translates to “flying engine” or “airplane” in Thai. The destination is secondary to the journey, which Lee, Speer and Johnson have embarked upon with aplomb for the better part of the last decade.
The trio, making its first local stop since an appearance at 2019’s Fortress Festival in Fort Worth, is touring behind its third studio album and most recent release, 2020’s Mordechai. (The band oversaw an album of Mordechai Remixes as well, which dropped in August.)
Khruangbin is also winding down its time on the road with a series of Texas shows to close out the year, which Speer, who did the bulk of the evening’s talking, noted up front: “It’s so nice to be back in the Lone Star State,” he said, as “Friday Morning,” the opening song, faded away. “You can’t imagine my joy stepping out into the mild Texas winter.”
Attempting any sort of succinct description of precisely what Khruangbin sounds like becomes secondary to describing what it feels like to see them perform. The band excels at crafting and sustaining a mood to which you can’t help but succumb. Musically, it’s a gumbo of funk and soul and disco and Latin pop and jazz and rock and psychedelia, stirred and stretched and spilled in all manner of fascinating directions. Highlights included “Summer Madness,” an electrifying “Lady and Man,” “Pelota” and a riveting “So We Won’t Forget.”
Situated atop three enormous platforms, which resembled the lower halves of mid-century modern-styled spacecraft, the musicians were surrounded by light, whether blaring spots ricocheting off mammoth disco balls, or pin-prick glittering, arrayed across a curtain draping the back of the stage. The cumulative effect often felt like floating — Khruangbin’s mastery of hypnotic grooves, the sound and sensation of three distinct instruments locked together yet dancing around one another is intoxicating.
The vocals, often shared by Lee and Speer, tend to hover in the background, an ethereal, luminous counterpoint to the funky, earthy interplay between guitar, drums and bass. Lee and Speer moved easily around the stage Friday, making the cavernous room feel more intimate as they dueled, together and apart.
The tempo quickened or slowed on a dime, pulling the ecstatic audience along with it, eliciting cheers when Khruangbin launched into beloved tracks like “White Gloves,” or effortlessly instrumentally quoted Elton John, the Shadows, AC/DC, and Dick Dale in the span of a few minutes.
It made for an evening of beauty most often appreciated fully on headphones being blown up to fill a mid-size venue without sacrificing any of its intricacy or allure. The appearance of Leon Bridges may have been a late pop of adrenaline, but the prevailing feeling as the attendees spilled back out into the unseasonably warm winter night seemed to be one of a more mellow, lingering high.
Khruangbin's Mark Speer proved the destination is less importat than the journey at the band's spacey Dallas show.
Mike Brooks
