by Max Newman
Really good concerts will allow you to enjoy the music on show; the best ones will allow you to live inside of it. Tuareg musician Bombino’s performance at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Wednesday, October 11 was certainly an example of the latter. The concert was magical from start to finish.
For someone known as the “Sultan of Shred,” Bombino started off with rather subtle, serene instrumentation: Bombino himself on acoustic guitar, Kawissan Mohamed Alhassan on a more quiet, textural electric guitar, Corey Wilhelm on a large hand drum, and, most interestingly, Djakrave Dia on a seemingly hollow wooden dome, loudly mic’d, that made a water drop-esque noise when softly hit.