Hey! Wanna hear something weird? The Xavier Rudd & the United Nations show at the Observatory on Thursday, Oct. 8, isn't sold out. Yet.
Maybe you don't get why this is weird, which is maybe why there are tickets still available. Allow me to explain.
Rudd is this Australian super-man of music. He can play approximately 700 different instruments (give or take), and his rootsy singer-songwriter style has drawn comparisons to Ben Harper, Jack Johnson and others. But he doesn't stick to that style, because why not kill it in as many ways as possible? Homeboy goes global. Homeboy is global. And he does it in an environmentally friendly way -- his 2007 tour was entirely carbon neutral! Come on. This dude is everything San Diego eats up. Oh, and with his new band, the United Nations, Rudd is all sorts of reggae.
Fans of Rudd’s solo work take note: This is not the one-man band, intimately surrounded by instruments -- multiple didgeridoos! A stomp box! Lap steel guitars! -- in lieu of bandmates, taking cue from nothing but his own rhythm as it unfolds. Joined by the United Nations, the Australian singer-songwriter comes to San Diego with reggae in his heart in support of his latest record.
Released earlier this year, “Nanna” is the first studio effort from a United Nations-backed Rudd. With musicians from Australia, Samoa, Africa, New Guinea and Germany comprising the United Nations, Rudd flavors the decidedly reggae-influenced record with world-music salt. It’s a taste that appears in pieces on his 2007 release, “White Moth,” and throughout his discography, but on “Nanna,” Rudd & the United Nations act as one, with Rudd taken from the spotlight and blended into the whole.
Chances are we won’t get a lot of shots to see the Aussie play live, so whatever you didgeridoo, didgeridon’t miss Xavier Rudd & the United Nations at the Observatory on Thursday.
Xavier Rudd & the United Nations play Observatory North Park on Thursday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. The show is 18+, and tickets are available here. Chadwick Stokes opens.
Hannah Lott-Schwartz, a San Diego native, moved back to the area after working the magazine-publishing scene in Boston. Now she’s straight trolling SD for all the music she missed while away. Want to help? Hit her up with just about anything at all over on Twitter, where -- though not always work-appropriate -- she means well.
