Tao Rodriguez Seeger at The World Cafe

Joel and I attended a concert at Philadelphia's world cafe theater Wednesday night to see Tao Rodriguez Seeger. He's the grandson of folk legend Pete Seeger, and the apples remain close to the tree. Seems Tao is not just a folk lefty, he's a loud folk lefty. He led his three piece band through a loud and racous set of originals and covers in both English and Spanish, as well as some very choice cover songs. Where Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions covered Pete like it was a hootenanny, Tao makes Pete sound like The Clash.

What started out as a crowd of maybe 200 was dwindling towards the end; I suspect they were expecting Tao the come out and strum like it was a 1959 union rally. Having seen Tao perform as his Grandpa's music director for a show at the Newport Folk Festival last summer, I was kind of suspecting something a bit more acoustic myself. However, his drummer (Robim McMillan) tore into his drums for the intro and his bassist (Jacob Silver) locked right on in. This was some on-fire and hard focused swaety rock and roll. And frankly, hearing Pete's "Bring 'Em Home" like it was taken from "London Calling" was nothing short of exhilarating.

Doesn't hurt that Tao's pretty easy on the eyes, too. Get out and see him if he comes to your town.