Concert Review: A Transcendental Rock Anomaly
An epic journey with Consider the Source at Buffalo Iron Works
They whipped right by me, these 20 years with the music of Consider the Source banging around in my brainpan, simultaneously thrilling me with its transcendent otherness, and making me feel inadequate as a musician through the dazzling virtuosity of it all. (First-world problem, I know.)
I was an easy target for the work of Gabriel Marin, CTS’ fretless guitarist and multi-cultural maestro. I blame my fully tenured fascination with the work of John McLaughlin in both the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti, my abiding love for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ravi Shankar, and my fan-boy devotion to Passion, Peter Gabriel’s globe-spanning soundtrack for Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, all of which combined to make my first exposure to Marin’s playing feel as natural and expected as a long-planned reunion with an old friend.
In the time since that initial exposure, I’ve soaked in CTS’ sublime sound every time they’ve passed through Buffalo - which has been often and consistently, with Buffalo Iron Works numbering among the band’s favored Queen City tour stops. The CTS musical mantra - a dizzying marriage of Middle Eastern influences, progressive rock, jazz fusion, funk and psychedelia - has matured and expanded over the years, to the point where it’s not unreasonable in 2026 to suggest that CTS occupies a genre of its own creation.
On Friday, April 3, Marin, bassist John Ferrara and drummer/percussionist Jeff Mann brought their never-ending tour back to Iron Works for an enthusiastically received 90-plus minute set that slapped a perma-grin across my visage, and then subtly rearranged my gray matter. Good lord, these guys are just insanely good.
Marin, employing his midi-equipped double-neck fretless, started the evening off with a clarion call, his slurred fretless lines moaning and wailing like an amplified sitar or sarod, summoning a Hindustani mode that hit me in a spiritual manner. (An abused word, ‘spiritual’, but one that still manages to do the trick.)
The ceremony thus commenced, Ferrara and Mann joined in, immediately reminding us that what makes this band so special is the trio’s ability to make the seemingly exotic sound natural, organic, and funky as all hell.
The set featured three centerpiece compositions form the band’s most recent studio effort, the outstandingly structured The Stare, in the form of opener “New World Cocek,” mid-set face-melter “Trial by Stone,” and “I Can See My Eyes.” All three of these perfectly encapsulated the CTS penchant for aching, keening melodic lines married to elegant, expansive arrangements that celebrate the best progressive rock’s ability to take the listener on an epic journey and deposit them safely back home at the other end, all without spilling their beer. (I did actually spill mine, sadly, after finding the urge to perform some strange form of expressive dance impossible to resist. I hope no one caught that on video. So far, so good.)
By this point in the show, my ears didn’t know where to look, if you catch my drift, so mind-blowing was the display of virtuosity erupting from the stage, as Marin’s weeping lines ricocheted off of Ferrara’s tapped, slapped and legato-laden figures, and Mann steadied the landspeeder inches above the shifting sands of poly-meter and complex time signatures, while making sure it all grooved.
What an embarrassment of musical riches. When Consider the Source make their way back to Buffalo - and they most assuredly will - you need to be there.
Consider the Source
Buffalo Iron Works
Buffalo, NY
April 3, 2026
Setlist:
New World Cocek
Many Words of Disapproval
Tihai for the Straight Guy
Trial by Stone
I Can See My Eyes
Closer to Home
Unfulfilled and Allienated
Enemies of Magick
You Won A Goat!
Mouthbreather
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They Call Him the Smiling Assassin
Jeff put CTS on my radar years ago with his list of upcoming shows in the Gusto. I will be forever grateful for pulling that thread 🙏 They just keep on getting better!