Ozomatli

My neighbor Stephanie knocked on my door on Friday evening asking if I was busy for the night. Apparently the L.A. born band Ozomatli was playing a concert on Sukhbaatar Square (reportedly the first American band to play such a venue) and a whole group of ex-pats were going. We went to Budweiser, a pub off the square, for a nice, cold Chinggis while The Lemons were playing an opening set and set off to the square during the intermission. The square was already heavily populated with a wide age-range of Mongolians. There were about four successive ropes orbiting the stage and we managed to get under two before we settled. The last two kept about twenty meters between the stage and the crowd--a lot of empty space for a concert...

It was a pick-pocketer's dream: the start of the tourist season and a huge crowd of people packed tightly together. I left everything but my house key and about $3 at home and watched as several young boys situated themselves between a few of my friends and I slyly unzipping purse pockets and backpacks. I pushed aside the ones that I saw, but I'm sure they made out pretty well that night.

Ozomatli, who according to one of the fans in our group, was finishing a world tour and stopped into UB on their way back to L.A. Whatever brought them to Mongolia, however, was not enough incentive to get them to learn a few key phrases in Mongolian and as such their entire show was a trifle hilarious. The music was pretty good, but their requests for the crowd to jump, shout or repeat certain words yielded only the response of the small group of Peace Corps volunteers happily dancing as if they hadn't been to a concert in 26 months. As hard as Ozomatli tried and as many charades as they attempted, the crowd just couldn't translate their requests.

At one point they had a few members of the famous Moriin Khuur ensemble come out for few a jam sessions. While the language of music may lessen the impact of any cultural barriers it still took them a few failed attempts before they got into a groove. The back and forth with Ozomatli's lead singer and one of Mongolia's famous throat singers was particularly entertaining.

The band finished their set, took a bow, thanked the crowd for their welcoming, albeit confused cheers and left the stage. At this point even the hard of hearing could figure out where in the crowd the Westerners were as the traditional encore cheering was only sparsely heard. The rest of the Mongolians surrounding me began pulling out their mobile phones and leaving the square. And as the cheering started to die out I wondered if an encore would even happen. Is it too much of a blow to the ego for a band to come out with a weak encore request? But one of the evening's emcees came out onto stage and began to plead for the crowd's cheers. She explained (in Mongolian) that Ozomatli wanted to hear their hoorah. Once she rallied enough support and those who had started to leave turned back around the band re-emerged on the stage. The lead singer prefaced their song with a request which, this time, was promptly translated: everyone jump. And that's all it took--just some translation. The encore was good and the crowd finally connected with the group. A few beloved (and admittedly adorable) Mongolian kids even took the stage to jump along with them.

We went to a pub following the show for a few beers and the night turned into te recital of many (most being non-pc) jokes. One of my favorites was delivered by a Mongolian friend of the group:

There's an American, a Frenchman and Mongolian stranded on this desert island and they come across this interesting looking bottle. They rub the bottle and this genie appears and says "because you have released me I will grant you each three wishes."

The American says: 1) I wish I were back home in America. 2) I wish was rich. 3) I wish I was famous. The genie then grants his three wishes: done, done and done.

The Frenchman says the same: 1) I wish I were back home in France. 2) I wish I were rich. 3) I wish I were famous. So the genie grants his three wishes: done, done and done.

So now only the Mongolian and the genie are left. The genie says "okay, now it's your turn. What three wishes do you want?"

The Mongolian sits and thinks for a while and then says, "I wish I had some vodka." So the genie grants him his wish and the Mongolian gets a bottle of vodka.

When he finishes the bottle the genie says to him, "okay, well you still have two more wishes. What do you want?"

The Mongolian sits and thinks for a while looking out at the ocean surrounding him and then says, "I wish this ocean was vodka." So the genie grants him his wish and turns the ocean into vodka.

While he's drinking the ocean the genie starts to get anxious and says, "okay, come on, what is your third wish going to be?"

The Mongolian sits down and thinks some more. Then in a slurred reply he says, "well I can't drink this all by myself. So I wish for those other two guys would come back here to help me."