Jeremiah and I headed out to First Fridays at the Natural History Museum, which we love to do as often as possible. As of late, its been our routine to get off work and head over to happy hour at Seven Grand, a whiskey bar in downtown, for an old-fashioned before heading over to the museum, where weve been meeting up with Bodie (our junior photographer) and his mom, Jamie. This was the 3rd event Bodie has shot with us and as you can see, hes getting used to the idea of melding music with photography. Hes learning and experimenting more with his camera settings and is well on his way to becoming the next great rock photographer.
The most recent March 2009 First Fridays featured BLK JKS and Fools Gold. This particular event was not as heavily attended as past First Fridays, but I didnt mind at all because there was no line to get into the mammal hall to see the bands, no drink lines, the bistro hadnt run out of wraps and we were able to freely move around the museum to check out the exhibits. This was especially a plus because a few friends met us at the museum and we were all able to navigate the museum together, which is rare at most First Fridays.
When we first arrived, we headed into the African Mammal Hall for a drink and some snacks from Mission Bistro, which has especially tasty food. Rather than buy a glass of wine, we discovered we could buy a bottle and walk around the museum with it. Theres just something right about cruising through a museum toting a bottle of wine. We ate our snacks while relaxing on swanky/comfy chairs and listening to the DJ before heading over to the North American Mammal Hall with our vino in hand to catch the first band, BLK JKS.
BLK JKS (pronounced Black Jacks) started off the night with their guitar driven funk metal rock. Hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa, you can tell that BLKS JKS are influenced by their homeland. They put on a lively show that got the crowd moving.
Fools Gold followed and took up the entire stage with their enormous band which was too numerous for me to count. Their music was upbeat and groovy and easily danceable. It had a world music vibe and in no time the band had the whole crowd dancing. They played quite a long set, keeping up an energetic pace throughout. They ended the night with a conga-line through the bouncing crowd before exiting backstage.
