Going to watch two hours of electronica at a venue like the Paramount last night did NOT initially seem exciting to me. While the Thievery Corporation’s remixes and world mashups have been some of my favorite lounge tracks to listen to for probably a decade, that doesn’t automatically mean that watching them live is going to be a great experience. I sort of watched them last year at Florida’s Langerado Music Festival, but it was 40 degrees, outdoors, and 1 o’clock in the morning. Needless to say, despite the fact that we were in the middle of the Everglades, it wasn’t the best setting to fully experience what they do. But last night’s Thievery Corp show was far more enjoyable than I could have expected and filled with lots of stimulating surprises that people in the audience seemed to love.The Washington D.C.-based DJ tandem kept the crowd well entertained, not just with danceable beats and effects, but also by having live musicians on stage playing along to all of the tracks. I counted two percussionists, two guitarists, bass, saxophone, and trumpet in addition to DJs Rob Garza and Eric Hilton manning the electronics. When they were all in harmony, it was a sweet mixture as they cycled in a bevy of world sounds from dub, acid house, and bossanova to bhangra and Indian classical. What was best about all of that is they brought out different singers/players for every song to give it an authentic feel. When it was time for Paulista style bossanova, they brought out a female Brazilian singer (my favorite of the night) to sing vocals and had capoeira videos playing in the background. When they switched to more of a lounge dub sound (which was what originally attracted me to them years ago) they brought out two singers from Jamaica to toast and sing over the tracks. And while the Jamaicans did their thing, video full of images straight from Kingston played on a huge projector behind the DJ stage. Thievery’s video/light show synchronization definitely stood out. It felt like an impressive attempt to stimulate multiple senses within our brains at once. To be critical for a point, I did feel like the musicians on stage, especially the barefoot bassist, and one of the guitarists were sort of grandstanding up there — strutting around like Mick Jagger begging for attention. It’s not terrible, but come on. The marquee DJs on stage were just trying to blend in so why be so overly emotive? It was initially fun to watch, but it got a little annoying over time. However, during some of the classical Indian beats that Thievery played, they brought out a sitar player who strummed his instrument like something out of a dream. The fact that they could incorporate live elements like that to accompany the electronic sounds they were spinning stood out the most. I don’t know what other folks thought of the show, but I’m definitely glad I got to see them last night.