Hot Honey: The Warmth of a Sunchaser blesses DC
Photographs by Jonathan Nevius
There are some nights in DC that start humming before the music even begins.
Walking up to the sidewalk crowd lined up around the block, you notice a soft glow radiating from the patient attendees. A visible buzz that you’d expect to be more subdued at such a late hour, but also perfectly in place for the evening we’re about to embark on.
Photographs by Jonathan Nevius
There’s no opener at this late-night show, but rather a DJ, lighting up the wood-print dance floor giving 9:30 Club a feel of where it came from, a gritty 80s nightclub. There’s a solid sense of community in the air, and people are really enjoying themselves to the upbeat house and techno tracks the DJ is laying down. The crowd is mostly young, between 20 and 35, with a sense of maturity you don’t usually see on a typical night out in DC.
Photographs by Jonathan Nevius
When the band finally arrives and eases into the night, there’s no dramatic entrance, no cheap hype tactics, just the first notes slipping out like butter on a warm pan. Slow. Melty. Smooth.
Sounds that gear you up to settle in, rather than jump. There’s an almost tangible gust of wind when shoulders around us drop down to lean, not forward, but inward. The band stretches out a groove that feels like it’s poured in hot honey, sweet but spicy, and we all sink right into it.
Daniel Kadawatha, known by many monikers but today as Arc De Soleil, certainly knows how to let a moment breathe. There’s no sprinting to the bridge or chorus; instead, he makes himself comfortable in a pocket of sound and lets the room soften around him. The band is doing an exact job of uplifting his lead, while owning and maintaining their own space as his chord progressions walk between them.
Photographs by Jonathan Nevius
The crowd isn’t just locked in, they’re entranced. As if they’ve fallen prey to The Shadow Man Dr. Facilier (the voodoo guy from Princess & The Frog), not just out of choice but out of desire. A woman in a white blouse in front of us can’t stop her body from contorting in all sorts of directions. It seems aimless to us, but she certainly knows the purpose of each movement. A group that primarily consists of bros in Grateful Dead garb, are forming what I’d describe as a ‘mosh-lite’, not from wanting to throw each other around, but rather pushing on each other in excitement at what they’re witnessing.
Arc De Soleil is very good. Not just tiktok good. Not just playlist good. Real life, be tantalized and mesmerized, good.
The band layers sounds like they’re painting the walls with different shades of sunlight. When you catch a glimpse of the festive halloween decor of cobwebs around the venue, you almost expect them to vanish when the combination of sound and light hit them.
The bass moves like it has a secret to tell, the dual percussionists aren’t simply trading beats but are extensions of one another, the rhythm guitar pulls while Daniel’s lead pushes to yank the audience out, but like an elastic band, reel them back in.
Sound melts around the body, somehow even more than through the ears. Warm across your chest, light behind your eyes, a perpetual spring-loaded soft bounce inside your legs.
As the show turns, the lighting dips into a soft amber and the venue glows like a late summer evening, a stark contrast to what the bundled up bystanders walking past outside are experiencing here in DC in late October. Daniel’s fringe lined tribal-esque pants almost look like they’re on fire in the orange and red hues that engulf the venue.
Kadawatha is using a lot of guitar tech, masterfully might I add, from what we can tell from the photo pit. That seems to be the secret sauce to how he’s able to bend space and time in this mid size venue to make you feel like the area around you is limitless. Each push of a pedal or flip of a switch is purposeful to not just carry forward Arc De Soleil’s signature sound, but also to make the soundwaves wiggle and snap at every right moment.
Photographs by Jonathan Nevius
Each strike across chords is like a pulley powering an escalator that keeps going up. The crowd roars, but he doesn’t even flinch, he just keeps taking us higher.
By the time we get to Akhet Jam, we’re in the physical manifestation of a kaleidoscope. Cascading patterns rippling through the fog in front of us, in a manner that seems random at first, but when you step back is in perfect symmetry.
Though some songs have lyrics, even those that don’t are being sang by the guitar. You try to sing along, but only he knows the words. At points, his playing is like a lullaby. Not because it’s inducing sleep, but rather comfort and safety. Listening to his journeys along the fretboard lets you know that everything is going to be alright. As I’ve mentioned in many of our articles, that’s certainly something that DC concert-goers need now more than ever.
The closing of the set does not snap the spell. The movement out of the venue isn’t rushed, or a surge. Instead, its light, like sea turtles floating down the East Australian Current.
We’re still sherpa-d by the lingering soundwaves that Arc De Soleil has littered the room with.
A perfect fall show: cozy, warm, energizing yet comforting, fast-paced without being rushed, the energy you need as you enter the colorful season of autumn. As we spill out on to V St, I find myself wondering: when might these soundwaves find me again? Not just a question of when Arc De Soleil will be back in town, but when I’ll snap back in the recoil of the elastic band I’ve been riding on all night. I can only wonder; but I suppose that was certainly the constant of the night: a sense of wonder driving through a desert with the top down. Sahara Cowboy Arc De Soleil in the driver’s seat, with no GPS telling us where we’ll go, and certainly not when we’ll be back.
Photographs by Jonathan Nevius