Mark Speer: Last News

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs New York discovered in no uncertain terms last summer when the star-studded “We Love NYC” concert in Central Park was abruptly canceled less than halfway before it was over, the threat of lightning is no joke when it comes to outdoor events. And although thunderclouds and some serious lightning flashes were a backdrop for Khruangbin and Vieux Farka Touré concert at a BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn concert in the New York borough’s Prospect Park, they passed to the south without a drop of rain, and the completely sold-out concert went on without incident from Mother Nature — except for some characteristically brutal NYC summer humidity.Khruangbin, a trio from Houston that plays mostly instrumental music, is a band as unusual as their name, and what was perhaps most remarkable about the concert was the size of the densely packed crowd — there aren’t many bands like them who are popular enough to sell out New York’s 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall, which they did earlier this year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOn the face of it, Grammy-winning R&B singer Leon Bridges and left-field alt-rock Khruangbin, led by guitar wizard Mark Speer, seem a very unlikely combination. But Bridges started pushing the boundaries of the vintage soul sounds of his 2015 debut, “Coming Home,” almost immediately, veering off into more organic, esoteric directions with the two albums he’s released since then — particularly his latest, “Gold-Diggers Sound” — and collaborating with everyone from Kacey Musgraves and John Mayer to Bun B and the Avalanches.