Alo

When
Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025
7 p.m.
Cost: $30
Where
680 SE 6th Ave
Portland, OR 97214

ALO stands for Animal Liberation Orchestra — because music liberates the inner animal. As liberated as they come, Zach Gill, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, and Steve Adams have certainly been at this a long time. The trio met while pre-teens in Saratoga, California, where they quickly connected through their love of music.

Twenty-five years in, Gill (keyboards/vocals), Lebo (guitar/vocals), Adams (bass, vocals) and newest addition, Bay Area drum legend-in-training Ezra Lipp (drums, vocals), have recorded their greatest work to date. Quite simply, this happens when a band doesn’t break up — the culmination of a lifetime of shared effort and camaraderie, four master collaborators at the peak of their craft with nothing left to prove, a near-telepathic cohesion. These guys have played with everybody. From royalty like Phil Lesh and members of the Grateful Dead to So Cal surf-troubadour Jack Johnson. If the show happened in California, you’ll almost always find one of them in the corner of the shot and, sometimes, even in the center.

ALO calls their music “jam-pop,” and the description is apt — meticulously crafted/accessibly-hooky compositions laced with improvisational departures, in which the band melds into a single organism in voice and consciousness. They’re always exploring but never wandering. There is always intention, momentum, patience and confidence that can only be wrought from a quarter century of collaboration and water under the bridge.