STS9 and friends at Mardi Gras World Friday

WHO: Insomniac, Soul’d Out Productions, Dead Nation & Ampersand Present STS9 (in “Sector 9″ form) Emancipator and SOJA
WHEN: 10 p.m. Friday, April 27
WHERE: Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World
WHY: Fans of the band’s pre-Mac days and instrumental funk and jazz groove style shouldn’t miss this opportunity to see Sector 9 revisiting its back catalog and layin’ it down old school, as it did at the much-buzzed-about 12/27/11 show that opened the New Year’s five-night run.
TICKETS: $35 (BUY)

A huge day of music will keep on delivering after Day 1 of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival wraps up with The Beach Boys, Steel Pulse and Bon Iver. On Friday evening, an extra special STS9 happening rolls in to the Big Easy, brought to you by the purveyors of all-things electronic Insomniac Events, Ampersand, Dead Nation and Soul’d Out Productions. The evening marks a speedy return to one of the band’s favorite cities for a special night of early-era “Sector 9,″ at the River City Ballroom at Mardi Gras World on the waterfront.

In recent years, the live electronic jam powerhouse has made a habit of multi-night runs in NOLA at the House of Blues, including an impressive, old school two-night run in November that totally revitalized my once-flickering interest in one of my all-time favorite live acts.

STS9 is celebrating the end of the Mayan calendar in a big way in 2012, with a series of special runs billed as the Great Cycle Spectacles that have already included stops in Denver and Chicago and continues in Oakland this weekend. This show promises to be sprawling, jarringly psychedelic and thoroughly adventurous, and even the most longtime, ardent fans should be able to expect a song or two that hasn’t seen the live stage in years.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR STS9: To continue the banner year of destination tour stops and festivals, the band is set to hit the nearby Hangout Fest. Next, Summmer Tour kicks into gear with a one-night-only exhibition of the Great Cycle Spectacles at Red Rocks before the return of its RE:Generation festival.

Following RE:Gen there’ll be a trip to Michigan for Electric Forest, a jaunt back West for High Sierra Music Festival and a wrap-up in Connecticut at Gathering of the Vibes.

Fittingly, given the band’s interest in Mayan mysticism and culture, STS9 will celebrate the end of the Mayan calendar cycle with a lengthy run alongside The Disco Biscuits and Umphrey’s McGee that will culminate with a midnight set by STS9.

Exhausting. If the world does in fact end in December, it appears that STS9 will have left it all on the table in 2012.

Wesley Hodges writes about music for Live Music Blog: NOLA and for NolaVie.