"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the very first time." -- TS Eliot
The Daily Mantra saw Morcheeba live last night at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. The show was the band's final stop on their North American tour to promote their new album Dive Deep, a CD that is quite possibly one of the finest produced this millennium (see previous story).
The show featured the delicate yet very capable vocals of Manda, a Parisian singer Morcheeba brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey found via MySpace. The set opened as the new album does, with the Judy Tzuke-penned “Enjoy The Ride,” a song that reminds us of how we’re masters of how we choose to perceive our own destinies.
Ross then introduced one of the band's classic tracks, "The Sea," from the 1998 album Big Calm. He revealed the soporific song was about the seaside town of Dover, where he and his brother grew up. He lamented that over-fishing has turned the once vibrant ocean there into a dead sea where little now lives, and urged those in the crowd to pay a visit to the Ocean Conservancy website.
The excellent live show, which exuded far more joie de vive than past live forays, featured a mix of songs from the band's six studio albums, and finished with a four-song encore, which included a delightful acoustic rendition of "Au Dela." The deceptively simple ditty, which is written in French, was the first song Manda wrote with the band, and is another of the many highlights to be found on Dive Deep. Did we mention we love (and make love to) this album?
, a CD that is quite possibly one of the finest produced this millennium (see 
