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http://www.beat.com.au/review.php?id=1287
PATRICK EMERY
Find out: SEEK Salary Centre Are you paid what you're worth?
Brian Jonestown Massacre
Lovetones / The Hi-Fi Bar
Someone more than peripherally involved with the last Brian Jonestown Massacre remarked recently that Anton’s behaviour – which has not surprisingly passed into local music mythology – transcended unhinged to assume a deeply disturbing tone. Not so much of an impending train wreck, as a potential psychological catastrophe of Dresden proportions. In that context, and with the exposure of Dig! to affirm Anton’s idiosyncratic personal style, was the crowd here tonight an indication of the quality of Brian Jonestown Massacre’s music, or a reflection of humanity’s perverse desire to see people flip out and never return?
Like most superficial extreme explanations, the reality is probably somewhere in the middle. Certainly, the crowd that had gathered to watch The Lovetones’ opening set wasn’t there to see if Matt Tow would rant and rave in deranged abandon – and neither did he, leading his band through an inspired entree of psychedelic rock, with a sweet and spicy pop edge. Mantra, I Gotta Feel, Wintertime in Hollywood, Stars, Pictures and a tantilising introduction to the next Lovetones album. The set closer, Navigator, bent, stretched and wandered round corners, just like a good psychedelic track should.
By the time Brian Jonestown Massacre appeared on stage, breathing space was at a premium in the front rows. The presence of a few proto-fuckwits didn’t help – just because you’re seeing a band led by a known weirdo doesn’t mean you have to emulate his behaviour – but the crowd, in a display of collective intelligence that bodes well for society’s future cohesion, acted to marginalise the moronic behaviour. Housed on the left of stage, with his back regularly to the crowd, Anton was the principal focus of attention. Joel Gion, for all the world a long lost extra from Planet of the Apes, swaggered out to the centre of the stage, holding court with his perfectly timed tambourine, delivered with a quintessentially laconic style, the centrifugal around to whom the band must gravitate. Dan Allaire on drums is a man possessed, the speed freak to Anton’s mushroom and acid freak out, or Joel’s stoner groove. If Ricky Maymi was a picture of enigmatic touch, Frankie Emerson was the band fool, occasionally exhibiting a furrowed, demented expression that suggested three days of brown acid watching a microwave oven in action.
Within moments the crowd was entranced, and enchanted. Brian Jonestown Massacre reside on the dark side of psychedelia, where the dreams of love and happiness have been drowned out by chemical and psychotic excess. The music drones in rhythmic harmony, the band coming together around Anton’s elegant pop riffs – there is a pop sensibility deep within this music, if only you’re prepared to look for it – creating a homogenous mass of psychedelic excellence. With his eyes closed, shuffling slightly and mesmerised by the music his band creating, Anton might be an autistic savant, dragging the crowd down an undulating kaleidescopic journey where the journey across the musical terrain transcends the relevance of the final destination.
Finally, almost two and a half hours after the band set out on its travels, it’s over, and secular speculation has been overtaken with religious awareness. Dominare noctem, again with feeling.
Like most superficial extreme explanations, the reality is probably somewhere in the middle. Certainly, the crowd that had gathered to watch The Lovetones’ opening set wasn’t there to see if Matt Tow would rant and rave in deranged abandon – and neither did he, leading his band through an inspired entree of psychedelic rock, with a sweet and spicy pop edge. Mantra, I Gotta Feel, Wintertime in Hollywood, Stars, Pictures and a tantilising introduction to the next Lovetones album. The set closer, Navigator, bent, stretched and wandered round corners, just like a good psychedelic track should.
By the time Brian Jonestown Massacre appeared on stage, breathing space was at a premium in the front rows. The presence of a few proto-fuckwits didn’t help – just because you’re seeing a band led by a known weirdo doesn’t mean you have to emulate his behaviour – but the crowd, in a display of collective intelligence that bodes well for society’s future cohesion, acted to marginalise the moronic behaviour. Housed on the left of stage, with his back regularly to the crowd, Anton was the principal focus of attention. Joel Gion, for all the world a long lost extra from Planet of the Apes, swaggered out to the centre of the stage, holding court with his perfectly timed tambourine, delivered with a quintessentially laconic style, the centrifugal around to whom the band must gravitate. Dan Allaire on drums is a man possessed, the speed freak to Anton’s mushroom and acid freak out, or Joel’s stoner groove. If Ricky Maymi was a picture of enigmatic touch, Frankie Emerson was the band fool, occasionally exhibiting a furrowed, demented expression that suggested three days of brown acid watching a microwave oven in action.
Within moments the crowd was entranced, and enchanted. Brian Jonestown Massacre reside on the dark side of psychedelia, where the dreams of love and happiness have been drowned out by chemical and psychotic excess. The music drones in rhythmic harmony, the band coming together around Anton’s elegant pop riffs – there is a pop sensibility deep within this music, if only you’re prepared to look for it – creating a homogenous mass of psychedelic excellence. With his eyes closed, shuffling slightly and mesmerised by the music his band creating, Anton might be an autistic savant, dragging the crowd down an undulating kaleidescopic journey where the journey across the musical terrain transcends the relevance of the final destination.
Finally, almost two and a half hours after the band set out on its travels, it’s over, and secular speculation has been overtaken with religious awareness. Dominare noctem, again with feeling.
PATRICK EMERY
Find out: SEEK Salary Centre Are you paid what you're worth?
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