THEESatisfactionThursday, March 29NeumosTo extract a question from Chris’ previous review: Does THEESatisfaction need to garnish their studio beats in performance with live instrumentation, or do people simply need to get over the fact that hip hop is often performed over static backing tracks? Sure, a few musicians can spice up a rap show, but placing a live band behind a couple of MCs has almost turned faux pas in 2012. It’s been done before, and, with the exception of Jay-Z’s Unplugged, rarely equals the recorded version. Stas and Cat produced all of awE naturalE’s instrumentals themselves, and, in my mind, they are impressive enough to stand alone. In THEESatisfaction, the two vocalists are the show, and they didn’t disappoint.To continue, you could look at last night’s awE naturalE release show at Neumos as a kind of coming out party for a band that has finally arrived at their “moment”, and is finally receiving the recognition they deserve, or you could simply view THEESatisfaction’s set as a mile marker in the career of a group that has packed Neumos before and will certainly do so again. I guess the “coming out” angle could be furthered by the fact that they chose to close out the night with a pair of Shabazz Palaces songs (“Endeavors for Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were Not Here. I Saw You Though.”) and “Swerve…the Reeping of All That Is Worthwhile (Noir Not Withstanding)”), thus ensuring a positive, familiar parting memory–but it wasn’t that. Stas and Cat owned the venue like they knew they could, and the extra frills (like the appearance of Shabazz Palaces’ Palaceer Lazaro and Tendai Maraire, and well as Erik Blood) only added to the impact of the show. Between–and during–guest spots, the duo performed vibrantly: the choreographed shuffles and turns punctuated their numbers that, like on the album, flowed aqueously from one to the next without banter or explanation. I agree that the small amount of supplemental instrumentation was difficult to hear over the backing track, but that was basically the only knock I had on the night. The vocals sounded great, and in my opinion, it was a big time performance from a group that had little to prove, but brought their A-game anyway.