Los Angeles radio station KCRW's annual summertime partnership with the L.A. Philharmonic, the KCRW World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, kicked off last weekend with a bill featuring Baaba Maal, Playing For Change, Yeasayer, Tinariwen, and Fool's Gold. But perhaps the most anticipated concert of the series came June 27, when glamazonian rocket queen Allison Goldfrapp and her troop of mylar-sheathed, keytar-wielding popbots hit the Bowl's spaceship-shaped stage, for a World Festival show that was truly out of this world.
The show opened with experimental folk act tUnE-yArDs and Cuban music ensemble Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, neither of which seemed to have much in common sonically with Goldfrapp–although the theme of this particular evening was "strong, awesome women," according to KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel, and tUnE-yArDs' fearsome Merrill Garbus and Buena Vista's featured vocalist Omara Portuondo certainly fit that bill.
Next up on L.A. Woman's Hollywood Bowl World Festival calendar: The Chemical Brothers with Chromeo and Yacht. What a wonderful World, indeed.