ozopalaceSo Ozomatli played a storming show at the Field of Heaven, and had to do it all again 9 hours later in the much smaller Crystal Palace spiegeltent. Every year the Palace seems to have one act that tears the place to pieces, and it wasn’t hard to guess that Ozomatli would be the one this year. So the two questions were:

* Could they top their first show?
* Could they top Rafven and Gogol Bordello’s madness of previous years

The quick answers: yes, and maybe.

They were more playful than earlier in the afternoon. At one point, Ulises makes a gesture with his finger and thumb to his lips. He then gets a sax solo, so the gesture must have been the reed to his mouth. Then the band join in and it’s “Pass The Duchie”. Probably wasn’t a reed gesture then. In quick succession, “Pass the Duchie” becomes “Top of the World”, “Pass the Duchie” again, “Strawberry Fields” and back to Musical Youth, all with a sound halfway between reggae and traditional Ozomatli.

From the new album, there was “45″, “Elysian Persuasion” and “Malagasy Shock”. The latter is clearly the one that’s set to become an Ozo live favourite.

What’s most amazing about this show is that they steered clear of most of the giant hits and live signatures, but had the crowd revved up as much as ever. With this band it’s not about which songs they play – they know exactly how to whip up an audience and they’ve got 5 strong album’s worth of music to mine.

When the music stopped, we waited for the encore, but it never came. This ain’t Woodstock. Ozo didn’t even get to take their instruments into the crowd, and I suspect it wasn’t their choice.