Saturday Night Prog Metal Awesomeness

Opeth
Virgin Black
Live at Luna Park September 6

Man does my neck fucking hurt.

I'm ashamed to admit it but I got into Opeth just a little too late to make it to their last Sydney show (which was two years back now). Fortunately they returned this weekend past on tour for their superlative new album Watershed and my years of regret can finally be put behind me.


The openers were goth metallers Virgin Black, who I saw almost nothing of on account of being across the road drinking in the pub. By all accounts they were OK but nothing to slit one's wrists over missing. All I can say about them of my first hand experience is that they produced a hell of a mighty bass rumble during their last song while I was waiting in line for the coat check.

But as for Opeth...


Heir Apparent

I was 90% sure they would open with this track, as it seemed like such an obvious way to get around the cliché of opening with the first track off the new album by instead opening with the track that was almost going to be the first track off the new album and that still starts things off with the required kick in the face of metal brutality. Having seen Opeth live on DVD before I wasn't expecting too much of an energetic set from them but pleasingly they exceeded my expectations on this count and gave this song in particular the extra balls and energy that a good live performance requires.


Master's Apprentices

Then it was straight into an older but no less brutal kick in the face metal track. The audience responded most favourably to this not so old classic. To my approval I noticed that there wasn't any serious moshing going on, just jumping, fist pumping and head banging. Not that I have anything against moshing when it's appropriate for the music but there are too many fucking kids nowadays who'll start a moshpit for anything. It's fine when it's Rage Against the Machine, Slayer or Dillinger Escape Plan but for fucks sake why at MSI or Tool? I imagine these idiots at a Wiggles concert, dragging little kids out of the way to make a circle and going “Big Red Car! Fuck yearh lets go!”

The Baying Of The Hounds

Mikael introduced this one by saying “All the tracks on this album except one are about the devil. This one is about dogs.” The first of his infamously dopey stage banter, which we got a lot of. To be honest I mostly found him pretty funny, in a characteristically literal Western European kind of way.

Anywho, the start of this song was killer and had a huge bouncing mosh pit going.


Serenity Painted Death

I'm not a huge fan of Still Life, and Mikael introduced this one by saying that none of them liked playing this particular song that much (the only member who did was their old drummer) which vindicates my opinion a little. I actually made a bathroom dash during this track, which for some reason I always feel a little ashamed of doing during a concert, but at least it gave me a chance to notice the light show they had going, which was projected back out over the audience rather than being focused on the band. Very cool!

To Rid The Disease

The obligatory acoustic track off Damnation. Some of the kids seemed pretty impatient with it but I really enjoyed it. It was good to see that Opeth genuinely are as comfortable with the mellow stuff as the heavy songs in a live setting, but this was the only track in that vein for the night. It's a pity because I would have liked to hear 'Face Of Melinda' or 'Coil' as well.



The Lotus Eater

This was a new song that I had been really looking forward to. Unfortunately this was one of the first times they'd played it live and while it was tight technically it didn't come together quite as well as it could of. I was of course still really pleased to hear it but was actually a little disappointed by the lack of audience response to the wacky boogie breakdown.

Bleak

This is one of my favourite Opeth tracks and it went off, except for an unfortunate five minutes of downtime in the middle where Mikael's guitar cut out. (“At least now you know that we play everything you hear!” was his response.) The band stalled for time by resorting to the stereotypical metal cliché of the wank drum solo, which was followed by a wank guitar solo from new guitarist Fredrik Akesson and for good measure a wank keyboard solo too. Say what you like about the new guys but they sure as fucking hell have chops.



The Night and the Silent Water

Mikael introduced this one as being written about his grandfather who passed away. The audience responded with the perfect sitcom “Awwwww” sound effect. This one went off pretty awesomely too, but not as awesome as...

Deliverance!

I might be a totally predictable fanboy but I fucking love this song. That legendary outro was more brutal than my best expectations. The new drummer, Ax, may not have put as much of a syncopated snap into that classic riff as Lopez used to but man did he smash the shit out of it. It was awesome.

Demon Of The Fall

And they finished the main set with the other song that they're obliged to play every night for the rest of their lives. It was good too. They also said that they hoped to come back again next year, here's hoping!



The Drapery Falls

This song was the encore. Mikael apologised for taking a while to come back out, “Mendez had to go to the bathroom”. This track is a little mellower and made a very nice moody end to the night.


To be honest I kept my expectations tempered for this one, based on the slightly unenergetic vibe of Opeth's live albums and my reasoning that the music is fairly cerebral and not ideal metal concert material. Fortunately and to my delight my expectations were well exceeded. They brought the rock and then some and it was enhanced by one of the best metal concert audiences I've ever seen. Despite the presence of quite a few kids the audience was mostly mature, appreciative and didn't smell too bad. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that Opeth do come back next year!

The wank solos:



To Rid The Disease (Sydneysiders still can't clap in time):



The breakdown of Master's Apprentices. Sideways and wobbly but good sound quality:

Saturday Night Icelandic Pixie Confetti Party

I said they were probably going to suck. I was wrong. I must admit, there was a bit of disingenuousness in that statement, chiefly for the purpose of deliberately keeping my expectations low. I was sceptical of just how engaging a band this twee and mellow could be in a live setting and also I was hesitant because it was at the Hordern Pavilion, a venue which has an inexplicable habit of hosting concerts that disappoint me. Luckily this time around my misgivings were unwarranted on both counts.

The openers, Pivot, were playing as I arrived. This three piece (local to Sydney) has a unique style which layers glitchy electronica in the vein of Autechre (but less avant garde and more catchy) over live drums and guitar. They're a little hard to describe in more detail than that off of a single listen, partly because they traversed a range of moods even in the single half set I saw. However I can happily report that they were a pretty decent live act, with loads of energy and confidence.

Pivot

As for Sigur Ros themselves, here's the setlist:

Svefn-G-Englar
Glosoli
Se Lest
Ny Batteri
Vid Spilum Endalaust
Hoppipolla
Med Blodnasir
Festival
Fljotavik
Saeglopur
Inni Mer Syngur
Hafsol
Gobbledigook

Untitled #8

All Alright

I stole this list from the comments to the concerts last.fm page, as I have little chance of actually remembering it on my own considering that both the length of Sigur Ros' songs and the fact that the titles are in a language I don't understand mean that I've never been too good at remembering which one was which anyway.


As you may or may not be able to tell, the song selection is fairly evenly divided between tracks from the new album, their previous one (Takk...) and their classic Agaetis Byrjun. Despite my misgivings about the new record those songs fitted in pretty well to the set. I must admit that several times I found myself thinking “I'm pretty sure this is a new song, but I'm really enjoying it... maybe it's actually an old one...”

As performers the band were as laid back and as twee as their music. Frontman Jonsi Birgisson, despite being a towering nordic giant, sounds like a pixie with his heavily accented, elfin English. The renditions of the songs were a little too similar to the album for my liking, but were performed with soul and plenty of gusto on the louder parts, especially those exuberantly stompy drums. Birgisson's extended coos (extended as in, 'going on for ages') should be mentioned too as an unexpected bit of showiness/showmanship from a band with such a reserved image.


It was cool to go to a concert where for a change at least half of it was about feeling nice instead of being goaded into an hour long frenzy. It actually took a bit of adjusting to but it turns out that nodding your head and smiling is actually also a fun way to appreciate live music. Mind you that was only half the performance, the rest was big stompy energetic fun even though you wouldn't know it to look at my fellow concertgoers, most of whom seemed to find even nodding their heads to be beneath their dignity. Fucking indie kids are probably scared of messing up their hair or losing their brightly coloured dark sunglasses.


The only lowlight of the set was 'Festival', my least favourite track from the new album, and one that was elevated in the live setting from 'too long and dead fucking boring' to 'too long and still pretty boring'. Fortunately there were plenty of great songs to compensate. The bombast and hooky piano riffs of Takk...'s two big anthems 'Glosoli' and 'Saeglopur' went down very well and the brass band marching onstage during 'Se Lest' was a highlight too. I was also really impressed by the absolute quiet during the final minutes of the opener ('Svefn-G-Englar'), even if the audience was unemotive they were still clearly enraptured. Closing out the main set with the new single 'Gobbledigook' was a great decision, I'm not all that fond of the track on the album but with everyone clapping along and glitter and confetti being fired everywhere, it was a sweet moment, one where I could almost completely by into Sigur Ros' tweeness.

The only track from () was the first encore, predictably enough 'Untitled #8' (or 'The Pop Song') (by far the scariest thing Sigur Ros have ever recorded). As expected given the fact that their music has moved in a very different direction since that album they didn't reach the same anger and intensity as the recorded version but it was still nice and loud and an epic way to finish out the concert.

Or not quite. After rapturous applause the band returned to leave us with the very mellow, sweet 'All Alright', which appropriately provided much less of a downer to end off a night that was mostly ridiculously upbeat.

Wake! Lift!

Rosetta – The Galilean Satellite, Wake/Lift and Live at Hermann's Bar 21st July

Over at I'm the Most Important Fucking Person in the World they've been running a series on bands that sound like Isis/Neurosis/Cult of Luna, as a response to and criticism of the particularly lazy way that the metal music press like to dismiss such bands as 'just another Cult of NeurIsis clone'. Rosetta would be a perfect candidate for their series, as their sound is quite unashamedly derivative of Isis and Neurosis (and in fact, Aaron Turner, vocalist of Isis, designed the artwork for The Galilean Satellite), but who cares how much they fit into an oversaturated genre when their music is so fucking great?

From their progenitors Rosetta borrow the long track lengths, raw, shouted vocals, a slow cycle of build and release and use of alternating gentle interludes and heavy climaxes. The more unique elements that Rosetta display are dense and frequent use of ambient electronica, an enveloping, spacey sound and a positive, uplifting vibe. Not just the electronics, but also the full sound of the instruments create a much richer soundscape than say Isis, who tend to be somewhat sparse and (at least until their last album) somewhat more purist in their adherence to a standard rock format. Rosetta also have a more uplifting, at times even joyous, emotional vibe to their music, which is a nice point of difference to their post-metal contemporaries and indeed to metal as a whole, which of course tends to be melancholic, when it's not downright depressing.

Rosetta have two full length albums out (as well as a few EPs which I haven't heard). Their first, The Galilean Satellite, is the more conventional post-metal record of the two. The songs are all roughly between ten minutes and a quarter of an hour long and are leisurely arranged, allowing plenty of time for the gradual cycling from peaceful acoustic and ambient passages to the heavy climaxes where they indulge in the genre's signature sound, lumbering riffs belting out a wall of crushing distortion. And of course, it's a concept album. This one is about a man who forsakes the company of his fellow humans and begins a life of isolation on Europa (one of Jupiter's moons, hence the album title), but eventually realises that he can't live without human companionship and returns to Earth. It might sound a little cheesy, but simple stories work best as album concepts and this one is well serviced by articulate lyrics and a powerful delivery. The Galilean Satellite also comes with a companion disc of purely ambient music and while it's a perfectly good album in it's own right it's actually meant to be played synchronously with the album proper. It's very a cool idea, even if Neurosis did do something similar a couple of years back.

Wake/Lift is their second album, and it shifts gears slightly by tightening up the arrangements and putting more focus on melody and riffage at the expense of the ambience, which is neither a bad nor good thing, just a difference. By and large the two albums are pretty similar, and they both rock out something wicked so I'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite.

Now I would never had heard of these guys, but they happened to be doing an Australian tour last month; unusual for an overseas band with so little exposure but most welcome all the same. Fortunately a half page interview in a local free music rag caught a friends eye and after a quick look at their myspace page I was sold.

The gig was at the dark and pokey Hermann's Bar, on campus at Sydney Uni. I was curious to see what kind of crowd a band like this would bring in (if any) considering the relatively sparse attendance for Isis last year. I was heartened to see that there at least was one, and as you'd expect mostly comprised of shy young men dressed all in black, some trailing bored, disinterested girlfriends.

There were three opening bands, and we arrived just in time to see the first close their set with a Celtic Frost cover. Following this mysterious, unnamed band were The Surrogate, from Brisbane who were an easy fit with the headliners in terms of sound and style. They were pretty fucking good too, with a lot of fine technique on display from all four musicians. Their drummer was especially impressive, handling primary vocals while playing. They performed with tons of guts and were very well received. The only bad thing I can say about them is that their guitarist didn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom.

The final opening band did not go down so well. In fact I felt a bit sorry for them, as after the enthusiastic applause that The Surrogate invited they received total silence at the end of each song. I don't remember their name, which is perhaps just as well because I wasn't very impressed by them. They sounded about halfway between Converge and Parkway Drive: screamy hardcore stuff. The singer did have a good strong voice, but I thought that their songs were kind of straightforward and boring, and their performances lacked the fire that that style of music really needs.

Finally Rosetta themselves took the stage. They were plagued by technical troubles to start with, including no vocals for the first song, and a muddy mix that rendered their spacey wall of sound mostly into a dull roar. Such things are to be expected at a rock show though and Rosetta compensated admirably with an impassioned performance. It's been a while since I had the opportunity to go to a smaller gig, where you can get right up and close to the band (close enough to get a bit of a shower when the vocalist went nuts on the climaxes), and the audience is well behaved but appreciative.

Hopefully it wasn't too expensive for them to come all the way over here and play. I'd love to see them again soon!

Here's the only video of them on youtube, or at least the only one I could find:



We were a much better audience than those guys by the way.

Long Weekend Munter Cuddle Fest '08

Big Day Out Sydney 2008

Even with a great performance by Tool last years Big Day Out (my first in Sydney) was a bit average. At the time I blamed the Australian attendees innate inferiority to a Kiwi crowd, but this year was an absolute blast, so either I was being prejudiced or I'm going native.

My enjoyment was in spite of the fact that I'd had a bender the night before and was feeling less than super, but a nice champagne breakfast where I helped myself to a bit of a hair of the dog and a shitload of pancakes got me ready to face the day.

One thing I wish that I'd taken a photo of was the guy they had dancing on top of the entrance to the venue. He was dressed up like that little retard from Melbourne who was in the news last week for inviting everyone on myspace to a party, and was greeting everyone entering the park: “Come on in everyone, it's a party! Woooo!” I thought it was pretty funny.

During the early afternoon we spent a good deal of time just wandering around, and one of the coolest things I saw was the drum playing robot. You can't tell from this picture but it's playing 'Bullet in your Head' by Rage.

A drum playing robot

The first band I made an effort to see was Regurgitator, who I have some fond memories of. They were the first band I saw at the first Big Day Out I went to way back in 1999 (oh my god, that's almost ten years ago...) and were really good back then but I saw them again a couple of years ago and was pretty disappointed. They weren't actually any better this time around but they at least closed out with good versions of 'What's at the End' and 'Polyester Girl'.

Regurgitator

I'm not sure what the deal was with the girls in the wedding dresses

Next up were Midnight Juggernauts, who I wanted to give a chance but after two songs I was bored to tears. I thought their first song was some kind of drawn out intro and was surprised when it suddenly ended to applause.

There then followed a terrifying interlude in which I tried to find a toilet stall that wasn't utterly horrifying, with only limited success.

Tom Morello + half of Anti-Flag

I made it round to the small stage to see in order to see The Nightwatchmen, a.k.a. Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine solo with an acoustic guitar. I'd heard this stuff before and didn't find it very interesting, but I'm glad I gave him a chance because it's the kind of music that's meant to be experienced live. It might be simple and low key (and completely different to Rage) but protest songs work best when heard as part of a crowd and you can pump your fist in the air along with everyone else pledging support for the striking miners union. By the end I was ready to go smash up a McDonalds or something.

Tom plays the tom

I'm not sure why I was surprised but Morello turns out to be a pretty good front man. As befitting the genre he was playing in he put on a folksy, friendly manner, chatting with the audience and joking that his album is 'available for illegal downloading as soon as you get home'. When he had to stop to retune his guitar he had everyone jump around and scream our heads off so that there wouldn't be a lull in the performance. Highlights of his set included the jump up and down singalong end of his second to last song 'The Road I Must Travel' and his Aussie pleasing covers of ACDC's 'Dirty Deeds' and Midnight Oil's 'Beds Are Burning', for which he was joined by two members of Anti-Flag.

Anti-Flag and The Nightwatchmen play 'Beds Are Burning'

After a few shenanigans in the boiler room I returned to the small stages for Battles. My last chance to see them in concert was soured by personal problems, so I was very glad that they got a chance to impress me again when my only emotional issue that they had to contend with was my full bladder. Battles have reworked their songs a bit for the live show, drawing the grooves out more so that the tracks now stretch to seven or eight minutes each. Their performance was as phenomenal as ever. Kind of sort of frontman Tyondai Braxton stunned me once more with his ability to play keys and guitar simultaneously, and the legendary John Stanier showed incredible skill on the drum kit, as the entire 45 minute concert was performed with each song segueing directly into the other, save for the finale 'Race: In', meaning that Stanier drummed for about 35 minutes nonstop. As the long, polyrhythmic intro of 'Race: In' approached it's climax you could see the strain and concentration on his face, and the release of tension when he turned around and smashed that high ride cymbal was a brilliant moment.

'Atlas'. Everyone joined in on the "Woo Ooh Ooh"s

John Stainer is a fucking demon

Battles are a bit of an abstract, egghead band so it's not all that surprising that their audience was full of big black glasses wearing indie geeks, and just as at the Gaelic last year they were a boring, tepid bunch. Fortunately I found a group of really wasted guys who were dancing and joined in. It turns out that Battles live are a lot more fun when you're waving your arms and jumping up and down like an idiot to them. The climax of 'Atlas' was the huge 'fuck yeah!' moment of the day (save for the other one, and you can probably guess what it was, that came at the end of the night) when I found myself involuntarily headbanging my arse off. It was a damn good set and one that quite easily washed away the bad taste of the last time I saw them.


I caught a wee bit of Karnivool, a fairly decent Aussie nu metal act, and I would have liked to have stuck around for a bit more of them but I really needed to get off my feet and rest for a little while in preparation for the headliners. So I ended up seeing a little bit of The Arcade Fire from the stands, who I knew nothing about and who sounded kind of nice but made very little impression. Although I was pleased by their brief inclusion of a few lines of a Bjork song, who we should have been seeing right then but who had cancelled on account of illness (much to my dismay).

And then at last it was time for Rage Against the Machine, who played almost exactly the same setlist as on Tuesday, but with 'Wake Up' switched out for 'War Within a Breath'; a slightly bewildering decision, sure 'War Within a Breath' is a great song but how can they not play 'Wake Up'? The band were tighter and not as tired as they were on Tuesday, but playing in the stadium instead of the smaller venue did mean that some of the atmosphere was lost.

This time around I was in the moshpit so it was a completely different experience to the previous concert. I had to deal with the usual festival moshpit perils: Mr. Ultraviolence, Ms. Clear Out A Space The Size Of A Circle Pit To Take Photos Of Her Friends and worst of all, Mr. Stand There And Do Nothing. For the first few songs I couldn't really appreciate the music because I was moving around looking for a good spot. I ended up in about the worst possible position, sandwiched between a circle pit and a group of sweaty munters crammed together faces to armpits like clowns in a phone booth. I am tempted to suggest that these people only come to metal concerts to experience the untender touch of their fellow man, rather than for the music. After I realised that I was the only one singing along and even trying to pay attention to who was on the stage, I moved back to where I saw a bunch of people jumping, and found a spot where I could kind of see, it wasn't too crowded and people were getting down and having a bit of a boogie.

Part Two of Terrible Rage Against the Machine Photo Masterpiece Theatre

Once I'd sorted that out I had a great time. I can only speculate as to what it must have looked like from the stands but the moshpit must have been enormous. Every song (with the possible exception of 'Renegades of Funk' again) went off like a motherfucker. The climax to the whole day came of course at the end of the set, when they pulled out old reliable 'Killing in the Name', a song perhaps suited like no other to be played for a stadium full of screaming munters by a band who've just returned from an eight year hiatus. The 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me' pay off is one of the most insane things I've ever seen at a concert. Just as the slow build up paused and the band hit the chorus to that infamous refrain, the stadium floodlights came on to reveal the moshpit flying up into the air as one for as far as I could see in all directions, and when everyone hit the ground again on the second beat everything. Just. Went. Fucking. Nuts. Dreadlocks thrashing everywhere. I could swear I saw dudes flying past me horizontally, although perhaps it was just that I was at 45 degrees and they were at 45 degrees in the other direction. A fucking glorious end to the day.

After that it was home to bed for me. Here's hoping next year will be as good!

An uncomfortable night to be a Howard supporter

Rage Against the Machine
Live at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, Jan 22^nd

Moshpit tickets sold out in seconds so, just as with Tool at the same time last year, I was seated for Rage Against the Machine's Big Day Out sideshow. It was a pity because unlike Tool, who can be appreciated quite nicely from a seated location, Rage are a band that ideally you want to be in the moshpit for. Fortunately my seats were a little better than last year. I was still near the back of the theatre but at least we were dead centre stage.

The openers were Anti-Flag, whose tepid pop punk did little for me and they seemed to be chosen as a support act more for their consonant political leanings than any musical similarity. Mind you they weren't terrible and they passed the time, even if they weren't as much fun as the Mexican Wave.

During the wait for Rage to take the stage the tension and anticipation in the crowd, even way back where I was, was strong. When the house lights dropped off and the huge red star at the back of the stage lit up to the strains of what I'm pretty sure was the Soviet national anthem, everyone leapt to their feet with a roar and, after frontman Zach de la Rocha introduced the band (“We're Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles, California!” No kidding bro!), the opening riff of Testify had everyone from the front of the moshpit back to the nosebleed seats boogieing their arses off. Tom Morello's first solo of the night was greeted by a massive cheer.

All my photos were exceptionally shit that night, so this is the only one I'll post. Hopefully when I get my new phone tomorrow it will usher in a bold new era of concert photos.

"Oh shit!” says Zach, apparently referring to the insanity of the moshpit, and with barely a pause they launched into the galvanising intro to Bulls On Parade. Turns out everyone else loves that wah wah guitar riff as much as I do. Next up was People of the Sun. With such an impressive backlog of surefire hits the energy stayed at ridiculously high levels for the entire concert with barely a moment for either the band or the audience to catch their breath for the full eighty minutes.

They then introduced the first track off the self titled album, Bombtrack. Zach seemed bored with the old stuff, he mixed the vocals around more and didn't seem as enthused during those songs. On the other hand the rest of the band were fully into it, perhaps they were just relieved that it wasn't Chris Cornell singing. And of course the punters went totally nuts.

Vietnow was followed by Bullet in your Head, which featured the first holy fucking shit solo from Morello, which he began by flipping his hand super fast back and forth around his guitar's neck and only got more crazy from there. Know your Enemy is another fan favourite, and Morello's solo was nuts on this one too. Renegades of Funk was perhaps the concerts' low point. I guess they felt obligated to play something from Renegades, but lets be honest, this is the averagest song off their averagest album.

Guerilla Radio was surprisingly well received. The house lights came on when the full band came in after the intro, giving us high in the stands the spectacular sight of a couple of thousand people totally going off in unison. Next up was Calm like a Bomb, not my favourite song of theirs but it still seemed to be popular, and without a beat the end segued right into Sleep Now In The Fire! I didn't like the way Zach sung it so much (he actually sang, rather than rapped), but it was still one of the highlights of the night.

Wake Up made a fucking awesome finish to the main set. Zach made a long speech during the breakdown, starting with a rant about the Iraq War, thanking Australia for kicking out 'that bootlicker Mr. Howard', mentioning Martin Luther King Day and telling us that 'the real vote takes place in the streets'. I must admit that I wonder just how Zach feels about watching an arena full of people cheer and pump their fists in the air in response to his call for a violent communist revolution when the next day most of us are going to go back to our desks in a tall office building in the CBD and keep on greasing the wheels of international finance. Following the speech Morello's squalling guitar fill ushered in the high point of the concert, as the entire audience bellowed “Wake up” and Morello blew the roof off with his finest work of the night in an unbelievable outro solo.

They kept us waiting a while for the encore, and from the looks of things it was because they were totally knackered. During the last few songs Zach spent a lot of time crouched on the edge of the stage, and it sounded like he was struggling for breath between lines. Mind you it didn't stop him bouncing all over the place during the instrumental breaks. First track of the encore was Freedom (big cheers greeted the cow bells in the 'anger is a gift part') which segued straight into an excerpt from Township Rebellion, (“Shackle your minds as you're left on the cross”), which in turn slowed down into those unmistakable drop D power chords that announce Killing in the Name, the ultimate show closer. It went off like a motherfucker of course, but from where I was standing not the best part of the concert (that was 'Wake Up'), so you'll have to wait until my Big Day Out post for me to describe how fucking crazy the 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me' bit went off.

It was definitely a fun concert, even back where I was sitting, but I do have a few criticisms. Although as individuals the band were great it was apparent that they haven't played these songs together for a while. There were a few flubbed transitions and they played a few of the tracks noticeably slower than they're performed on the album. Zach especially seemed really tired, he looked like he was about to pass out at the end of 'Freedom'. Plus the mix sounded pretty awful from where I was and for the first few songs I could barely hear the guitar.

But of course these guys overcame these difficulties by virtue of the fact that their songs are among the most effortlessly catchy arena metal anthems ever written, and that their individual performances were all great. As well as Morello being a freaky fucking guitar theurgist, drummer Brad Wilk deserves special mention for cranking things up a few notches from the recorded versions with crazy fills all over the place and just damn playing with a metric dickload of energy.

It doesn't rival the fantastic concerts I saw at about this time last year, but it was most definitely a promising omen for the year ahead. Especially with Nightwish next Friday!

Sunday Night Goth Piano Freakout

Grinderman / Nick Cave
Live at the Enmore Theatre, Sunday 21st

It's been a few months since a concert came around that I was genuinely excited about, and almost as long since I saw one that truly blew me away. I'm happy to say that both timers were reset by Nick Cave's (or rather, Grinderman's) concert this Sunday past.

I arrived a bit late, just in time to catch the end of the opening act, an antiquated stage magician. It was a cute act and kind of entertaining, but he was no Dr. Octavio.

We didn't have long to wait until Grinderman took the stage, led by Nick Cave sporting an improbable handlebar moustache and featuring three other members of the Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos and Martyn Casey, who are also following the theme of wild facial hair (Jim and Warren's beards reach ZZ Top proportions). Together they delivered a dirty, bluesy variation on Cave's usual style. Cave himself was, as you'd expect, the centre of attention for most of the show, dancing wildly around the stage with that distinctive, preacher-like way of waving his skinny arms around (his dancing as almost as iconic as the spasmodic flailing of the Yorke Gimp Dance) and leaning out over the barrier to speak directly to the front row of the audience. Cave wears a persona for this band, an angry one that makes appear like a man possessed, but it's done with a wink and a grin.

Grinderman: Featuring some big assed beards

The music was fine stuff, supported by a light show that enhanced the bands Tom Waits-esque vaudeville goth sound, and I was particularly impressed by the raw, improvised feel of the band. Most bands I see these days sound perfectly honed and play every note precisely the way it's meant to be, and play it the same way at every concert. While that's a solid musical achievement I'm still more impressed by a band like this one, where the artists are so familiar and comfortable with one another that they can decide which songs to play off the cuff (a memorable exchange from the later set: Ellis: “What key is this in again?”, Cave: “Uh... somewhere between C and G I think.”, [muffled arguing], Cave: “Must be C, it's an easy one. All white notes.”) and to mess around and improvise within the songs without losing the groove.

Grinderman: Featuring Invisible Nick Cave

Grinderman Setlist (to the best of my recollection, as usual the order is probably a bit wrong):

• Depth Charge Ethel
• Get it On
• Electric Alice
• Honey Bee
• Grinderman
• I Don't Need You
• When My Love Comes Down
• No Pussy Blues

The short (forty minute) set was good fun, but in my opinion the Grinderman album is a lesser light in Cave's stellar back catalogue and it seems that this opinion is shared widely among my fellow Sydney music fans, as there was an element of restlessness throughout the set. It was good, but we knew that what was coming would be better. The closer, 'No Pussy Blues', was the highlight for most (although I was more excited to hear my favourite Grinderman track, 'When My Love Comes Down' and Cave's awesome guitar freakout at the end of their eponymous song) and at the end Cave announced “Good night... from Grinderman”.

After a short break a new band took the stage, one that looked remarkably like Grinderman but wearing different coloured suits and without the silver stage backdrop. In his guise as 'Nick Cave solo', Cave is much more relaxed and chatty (even more so than Lemmy was), responding to requests and heckles from the audience. I've never heard a band get heckled as badly as Cave was here (although the audience was as a whole wildly appreciative), perhaps it's because he's an Aussie, and therefore fair game as 'one of their own', or is it just because a lot of his songs are quiet, allowing the drunken idiots to be heard? I remain uncertain.

Nick Cave as Himself (rather than the Grinderman)

This set was the heart of the show and the songs ranged in quality from 'Jolly good fun' to 'Completely fucking awesome'. Some were played straight, some were a little Grindermanized from their Bad Seeds origins, and all were introduced by a amiable and witty Nick Cave.

Red Right Hand

With that distinctive bell tone the band suddenly launches into Cave's signature song. The audience immediately goes wild. This one was played fairly straight, save for some particularly aggressive piano and violin freakouts after each chorus. It was an incredible rendition and a fantastic first taste of a band I've been aching to see for years.

Into My Arms

Cave: “We're going to play a few hits for you tonight. Well, not really hits, but songs that wanted to be hits. They tried their very best... Well, they're all hits to me. If you'd all sing along to this one, [pause] it'd be a hit!”

This one was played straight (save for the addition of the backing band, who kept themselves respectfully quiet behind the piano and vocals), but it's another favourite of mine.

The Weeping Song

Holy shit this was awesome. One of the best single songs I've heard from any band this year. On the album it's a classic, but such maudlin stylings does not necessarily carry over so well to a live setting. They've reworked this one into a huge, stomping, aggro motherfucker of a rock track and although it might not sound like a good idea I can assure you that it was an almost transcendent scream-along.

This video has terrible sound quality and it's not nearly as good a version as what I heard (it's from a year ago), but it gives the general idea:



Babe, You Turn Me On
Cannibal's Hymn

These two tracks from the Bad Seeds most recent album were played pretty much straight, although there was a bit of a country twang to 'Babe' and a bit more stompy rockness to 'Cannibal's Hymn'.

Love Letter
The Ship Song

And these two mellow piano ballads were more or less straight too. They lacked a little energy compared to the rest of the show, which is unfortunate, as on record they're two of my favourites. In an amusing interlude the audience asks Cave to move the organ he played on Grinderman as it's obstructing their view of the grand piano. “Lose the organ!”, “Lose the music stand!” Cave dutifully does so (yelling in mock anger at the roadies “Get rid of it! Get rid of it!”). “Lose the moustache!” someone yells out. “NO!” replies Cave, “It's here to stay. And as for the beard...” (pointing at Ellis).

God Is In the House

The heckling actually became pretty entertaining towards the end of the show. Cave introduces the song by saying “It'd really mean a lot to me, if you'd all sing along with the chorus.” “What's in it for us?” someone yells out. Cave laughs for a while and replies “That's the best thing anyone's yelled out at me for... quite a while.” Another funny moment at the end when the song gets really quiet as Cave sings “...as quiet as a mouse...” and someone ruins the almost dead silence of the theatre by screaming, causing Cave to leap off the piano stool, run to the front of the stage and make angry shushing gestures.

Tupelo
The Mercy Seat
Deanna
Jack the Ripper

The main set finished with four old songs that I'm only partially familiar with (but which were all highly enjoyable all the same), performed in a rocky, aggressive style (even 'Deanna'). 'The Mercy Seat' was particularly intense, probably the highlight of the night besides 'The Weeping Song'.

Obligatory not shitty photo

At most concerts the demand for an encore is fairly perfunctory and lacklustre. On Sunday night the roaring of the crowd was an emphatically heartfelt demand for more.

Lime-Tree Arbour
The Lyre of Orpheus
Right Now I'm A-Roaming
Go Tell the Women

There was a fairly long winded discussion about which song to play to first for the encore. Cave ignored our demands for 'Stagger Lee', considered a few others and then abruptly settled on a straight but nice version of 'Lime-Tree Arbour'. This was then followed by an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday by a random member of the audience to Jim (the drummer) whose beard had apparently grown another ring on Sunday. 'Right Now I'm A-Roaming' was a nice, light hearted end to the set, except that just as they were walking off, Nick whirls around, says “I almost forgot!” and played a last, final Grinderman track.

My best beard shot

Another brilliant concert. I've been so lucky to see so much great stuff this year (although I wish I'd bought tickets to Grinderman's Saturday and Monday shows as well). Cave is another brilliant frontman, lacking the charisma of Lemmy or Mike Patton but making up for it with huge amounts of infectious energy. I loved the way he would leap out of his piano stool just to wave his arms in exhortation at the audience in between bars for a mere five seconds before returning to start playing again (his excellent musicianship kind of goes without saying). At any rate, who needs charisma when everyone knows that you're one of the finest songwriters alive today?

Cave will be back next year with the Bad Seeds (and a new Bad Seeds album). I can barely wait!

From The Fucking Awesome File

I've got Nightwish tickets! Woohoo! Unfortunately I've got to wait until February to see them...

I wish I knew if some good bands were playing in New York or London while I was there. All I know is that I'm missing Isis by about two days.

Sunday Night Bogan Rampage

Motörhead
Rose Tattoo
Live at the Enmore Theatre, Oct 7^th

I must admit that I'm not at all familiar with Motorhead's work. In fact, the only song of theirs that I would even recognise is the inescapable 'Ace of Spades' (which pops up in the unlikeliest places...). Still, they have a reputation as a great live act and Lemmy is over sixty, so it's possible that this may be my only chance to see them.

I was told to expect a diverse crowd and that's certainly what I found. There were a large number of the expected bikers, bogans and metallers, but they were surprisingly enough balanced out by all sorts of punks, goths, emos and even a few normal people, who stood out like beacons in the night with their non-black t-shirts and blonde hair.

Rose Tattoo

The openers were Airbourne (who I completely missed) and Rose Tattoo (who I didn't). I'm not sure if I'd ever heard of Rose Tattoo before I moved to Sydney so for those who need filling in they're basically the Aussie equivalent of Motorhead. They maybe have a little less of the punk and a little more of the Seventies rock than the headliners, but it's a pretty solid comparison, as both bands are populated by aging, leather clad rockers. Rose Tattoo's set was pleasing enough and a passed the time well.

Apparently Lemmy sets his mic pointing down like that so he doesn't have to see the audience.

We didn't have long to wait until Motorhead took the stage. Their set was a decent ninety minutes and while it started out a bit tepid the band slowly but steadily cranked the intensity (and the volume) right up until the end, when they blasted out a nice three song encore which included, of course, 'Ace of Spades'. The moshpit started out pretty much non-existant, got rowdy about four or five songs in when they pulled out 'Killers', and steadily got messier and messier, in the way that only moshpits full of tanked forty year old bogans can, until the last song when a brawl erupted over a drumstick thrown into the crowd. As for the volume, Motorhead are supposedly the loadest band on earth and while I was wondering what the fuss was about at the time, it turned out that they start at a reasonable level and only gradually increase the volume so that even though it didn't sound loud at the time my ears are still ringing now!

Hey look a decent photo!

The star of the show in terms of flashy musicianship was the drummer, Mikkey Dee. He had his five minute drum solo in the spotlight, which was actually pretty cool (and I usually hate long drum solos, thank you Neil Peart) but even besides that he was an absolute machine the whole way through. Of course the real star of the show was Lemmy, who is a living rock legend. He may not have Mike Patton's showmanship (during his actual performance he seemed kind of bored a lot of the time. Maybe too much booze and not enough speed today...) but his casual, affable nature (he actually had conversations with people in the front row) gives him a different sort of charisma, an understated kind that is unspoken but supported by the weight of his reputation as a honest to god rock and roll motherfucker. His stage banter didn't seem at all premeditated and he even seemed genuine when he thanked the audience. He truly is one of the greatest rock and roll frontmen ever.

My phone really likes the colour purple.

This gig won't go down as one of the best I've seen all year, but I am very glad that I did go, both just for a fun night out and also so that I can now say that I've seen Lemmy in the flesh.

Wednesday Night Math Rock Geek Out

Battles
Live at The Gaelic Club, 26^th September

The Gaelic Club was about ten times more packed than the last time I was there, which was back in February to see Suffocation, a very, very different band to Battles. The audience in attendance this time around was also ten times less intense and in fact it was probably one of the geekiest crowds I've ever been in.

My Disco

The openers were My Disco, who I saw last year opening for Mogwai and who really impressed me back then. They're a good match for Battles; their mathy but danceable rhythms are quite similar, although My Disco have more of a straight up rock tone compared to Battles' artificial synthiness. They were just as good this time around, almost as much fun as the headliners.

Battles: Featuring shirtless John Stanier

As artificial as their sound is, Battles turned out to be a great live band. With a combination of guitars, keys, crazy noise boxes and of course John Stanier's amazing drumming, they recreate the sound of the album more or less straight up, but with a more loose, aggressive energy, as befits a live concert. The music is highly technically challenging and it was a treat to see them deliver it so skilfully The guitarists liked to show off by fingering their guitars with one hand and playing keys simultaneously with the other. Stanier is a fucking machine, and his kit is given pride of place at centre stage front in order to reflect his importance to the band. Collectively as performers they come across as a bunch of cocky showoffs, but I'm inclined to give them a break. Anyone who does the hard yards in brilliant but underrated bands like Tomahawk or Don Caballero and finally ends up getting recognition for something as imaginative and skilfully impressive as Battles deserves to smugly enjoy all the coke and pussy that's coming their way.

Yes, Stanier's ride cymbal is set absurdly high.

The happy, adrenalising energy of the music was a little wasted on the crowd. Many of the pimply basement dwellers in attendance would probably be too scared to actually move in any way more exaggerated than a rhythmic nod of the head and a polite golf clap between songs for fear of losing indie cred, and even were that not the case, the pokey little Gaelic was packed wall to wall so there was no chance of flailing around like a lunatic, the way the music wanted you to.

Predictably enough, big single 'Atlas' was the highlight of the set.

Here's hoping next time they play in a bigger venue so that we can all flail away.

Upcoming Concerts

• Yesterday: Battles (post coming tomorrow, or maybe the next day)
• Early October: Motorhead
• Late October: Nick Cave/Grinderman; Mammal (again)
• Early November: Machine Head with Arch Enemy
• Mid November: Would be Muse, but I'll be in London; Would have been Dillinger Escape Plan with Meshuggah, but they cancelled.
• January: Rage Against the Machine!
• March: The rumour has it that this is when Tool are planning to return...

What I Did On My Weekend

Go Trent Go Edition

Well it felt like it took forever but Trent Reznor and his goons have finally gotten their arses back to Australia to make up for the shows they cancelled last May. According to Trent these were the third and second to last shows for Nine Inch Nails with this lineup and also the last in the format of a rock band. It will remain to be seen just what he has in mind but it did feel a little like the end of an era...

The first concert was at Luna Park, the same venue as the May show, and it's a smaller, more intimate venue than you'd expect from a band of this stature.

White Rose Movement were the openers, brought over specially from London. If you're in to the whole nu-new wave thing they might have been entertaining but I was bored to tears. I have no fondness for bands who stand around on stage looking like fashionably dressed robots who have been programmed to only feel ennui. The singer jumped around a lot but it looked more like he was just going through a mental list of actions to be performed by a rock singer rather than that he was picking up the mike stand and waving it around because he was actually excited. K. actually likes this kind of music and even she said that they were a crap live band.

But lets not dwell on that. Nine Inch Nails' history of poor opening bands is no new topic. For Saturday night I figured it was my opportunity to get up close to the band so I found a good place in the mosh pit, and waited patiently until we heard the martial beat of:

Hyperpower!!!
The Beginning of the End
They opened with the same two songs as last time. And fair enough too. 'Hyperpower' is a pretty good walk on track and 'The Beginning of the End' is a good opener.

The band take the stage for 'The Beginning of the End'

Last
On this tour the band have been playing a lot of oldies that have never seen the light of day until now. This is the only one we got over all three concerts, but I'm glad we did. It's a favourite of mine from back in the old days, and this tour might be my only chance to ever hear it.

I don't go out of my way to take photos of people dissolving into a blissful white light but I do seem to end up with a lot of them.

Sin
March of the Pigs
Something I Can Never Have
Closer
They followed up with a selection of their staples. Much to my satisfaction 'Sin' had the awesome synth intro from the Fragility tour this time around. 'March of the Pigs' was pretty much the same as the last three times I saw it, but I get the impression that Trent really likes watching a moshpit go nuts to a song about how shit moshpits are. His vocals during the extended outro sounded a bit like those on 'Memorabilia', but maybe that's just my imagination. 'Something I Can Never Have' was nice, Trent played a nice extended outro on the piano. As is now standard 'Closer' had bits from 'The Only Time' mixed in as a breakdown. This time with lyrics!

Survivalism
Burn
Gave Up
The moshpit was far rougher this time around (compared to the almost stationary audience back in May). Possibly it's because last time they divided the moshpit into two with a barrier, thereby halving the population of shenanigan causing troublemakers.

Burn!

After these tracks they lowered a big LCD screen over the stage and, as in the previous show, they changed their setup to just three laptops, manned by Alessandro, Trent and Aaron. With the ambient noise from 'Another Version of the Truth' providing an intro, they played a little set of:

Me, I'm Not
The Great Destroyer
Which were both fucking excellent. The last time I'd seen them was the first time they ever played 'Me I'm Not' and this time they had it ironed out a bit better. The crazy noisy outro was really good this time. 'The Great Destroyer' of course has an even crazier, noisier outro, and was incredibly fucking brutal. As an extra for experts they even mixed in samples from 'Happiness in Slavery'!

Me, I'm Not

The visuals on the screen were pretty cool (but abstract, unlike the stuff on the live DVDs) and the screen itself was pretty cool too, it could be turned partially transparent, revealing the band behind it.

I wish we could have had more of these visuals, but I'm glad I've finally seen a proper NIN stage show.

Eraser
Only
The band then hid behind the screen for these two songs (Roger Waters styles!), and they had some nice effects during 'Only' when parts of the projection would turn off, showing a glimpse one or another of the band behind it through the static. As far as the moshpit was concerned 'Only' was one of the highlights of the night, although Sydneysiders apparently still have a lot of trouble jumping in time with the music.

Wish
The Good Soldier
Even though they played this one last time I was thrilled to hear it again. The band seemed to be in a better mood this time so I think the original, melancholy spirit of the song came through better.

Following this Trent made a little speech, introducing the other guys on stage and mentioning each of their other musical projects that they'll be pursuing once he kicks them out of his band. He didn't exactly apologise for cancelling the earlier shows but he did joke that 'It feels like just yesterday that we were playing here...' and that he recognised almost everyone in the audience. He also apparently still hates Billy Corgan. Ten years may be a long time to hold a grudge, but by and large Trent seemed so much happier and more upbeat than the last three times I saw him. Good for him!

No, You Don't
Suck
The Day the World Went Away
This is one of my favourite NIN songs and I'm so glad I finally got to hear it!

Dead Souls
Down in it
A nice surprise to get this one! The band seemed to have a lot of fun playing such a goofy song.

The Hand that Feeds
Head like a hole
And they closed with the standard finishers. “But wait”, cried every munter in the audience, “you forgot something!”, well that's not quite what they said, they actually just chanted “Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! Hurt!” so two minutes later, Trent returned onstage alone and played another very beautiful version of

Hurt
The screen descended and displayed a small starfield behind Trent as he played. As the full band joined him for the final chorus the field expanded, and when the heavy bit kicked in the screen turned transparent and the stage was bathed in yellow light. It lacked the emotional power of May's performance but for the visuals this was definitely the coolest version I've seen. I also noticed how Trent has developed the way he sings this song over the years. He's taken a maudlin tale of crushing depression and turned it into a song of redemption. It was a wonderful way to end the set.

Trent plays 'Hurt'

Despite my sarcastic comments above I don't think Trent is actually firing the rest of the band. I suspect that what's happened is that those guys have toured with him for basically three years straight and now they want to do other things, and Trent is using the opportunity to reassess how he's going to perform live. I'll be sorry to see Josh Freese go, he's a great drummer, though often understated and that suits this band perfectly. Alessandro is also pretty cool, although he too gets overlooked because the nature of his role is to stay in the background, save for one or two moments in the spotlight like the start of 'Sin' or the solo in 'The Hand that Feeds'. I'm not so fond of Aaron North on guitar, he seems to do one thing and do it very well and that's those crazy waily, wobbly solos where he swings his guitar around madly. Those are pretty cool but I don't think he really carries the mellow side of this band very well. Jeordie White ostensibly plays bass but I think his main function is just being Jeordie White, he'll be missed but I'm sure we'll see him lurking around stage right again with some other band in the future.

Sunday's show was at the much larger Hordern Pavilion, where I saw them way back in aught five. K. was hungover and I'd done my time in the moshpit the last night so we decided to sit and watch from the seats, where we could actually see the band. The setlist was similar to Saturday, but with some nice surprises.

Hyperpower
The Beginning of the End
No kidding!

Heresy
Terrible Lie
March of the Pigs
The Frail/The Wretched
We saw the welcome return of 'Heresy' but even though the next three were songs they'd played to death the band went absolutely nuts playing them and they were among the highlights of all three shows.

Closer
Ruiner
Here's another one I didn't expect to hear, and another old favourite that I'm glad I was given a chance to singalong to.

Survivalism
Piggy
Gave Up

I wonder if the smoke machine is there to stop cellphone video bootlegging.

Me, I'm Not
The Great Destroyer

You can't really tell from this photo but the outro of 'The Great Destroyer' is pretty fucking loud, especially if you're right in front of the speakers.

Eraser

At least you can see through Trent's Wall.

Only

"There is no you there is only me"

Wish
The Good Soldier
No, You Don't
Reptile
Trent cracked a few more jokes at this point (“I think I recognise all of you tonight”) and mentioned the rant that he posted on nin.com the last time he was in Australia about high CD prices are here. He asked if the prices had dropped since then, and received a resounding “NO” in response. He then told us that we all knew what to do about it. “Steal away!”

The Day the World Went Away
Hurt
The Hand that Feeds
Starfuckers Inc.
Head like a hole
The band seemed to lack energy for the middle stretch of this concert, I thought the crowd (which was a bit small for the venue) was relatively tepid, especially when compared to the feral aggro of last night and the die hard fans hanging on every note back in May, but they sure pulled it out for the last few songs. 'Hurt' was nothing special when compared to the last two times I heard it (although Trent did add some nice embellishment to the piano parts), but the last three rockers were pretty intense, probably because they seem to be favourites of the band and it was the second to last time they'd have a chance to play it together. 'Starfuckers' in particular was wild. Josh kept cranking the tempo during the outro and by the end I wished I'd joined the moshpit, which looked spectacular.

Well that's all the Nine Inch Nails there is for now. Trent promises to release a new album next year and tour hear again next winter (maybe there'll be New Zealand dates this time), here's hoping that's what happens, but we all know how these promises have worked out in the past!