BAM Magazine

Review by Gena Nason

February 11, 1998

Raji’s, Hollywood

It’s hard to believe that some people actually need drugs to alter their state of mind. After all, in a live environment, Lava Diva can throw almost anyone into a different brain wave pattern following just a few songs.

Like most tiny LA clubs, the intimacy of the cramped Raji’s floor, not to mention its small stage, only serves to enhance the performer/audience relationship. When the lead players can easily step into the first row of the crowd, it’s pretty intimate — and Lava Diva used these close quarters to provide extra doses of emotion and expression.

Although Lava Diva normally plays a potent, strong crunch of rocking rhythms and multitextured beats, the band had to slightly tone down its normally aggressive physical movements from this show. With not as much room as they probably would have liked, the energy was instead rechanneled into the tunes, which rocked, rolled, and weaved along, creating the druggy, trance-like effect for which this band has come to be known.

Looking completely engrossed by every last mournful, reverberating, intense pluck of her instrument, bassist Johnny Sabella shut her eyes and kneaded her way into each song. Her performance was so involved, in fact, that it almost made lead singer/guitarist Dawn Fintor seem complacent by comparison. Still, Fintor’s demeanor was hypnotic throughout, and she broke the spell only momentarily to say a few words to some very adoring fans near the front of the stage, managing to take some of the heaviness off the top of the music with her beautiful smile. And Greg Bernath never let up, beefing up the beat and adding a strong rhythm to the mesmerizing tones throughout.

Although it’s nicer to see Lava Diva when the members have more room to shake about and really get things going, they still put on one mind-melter of a show at Raji’s.