The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Powerstation November 10, 2015

0

 

13th Floor - Brian Jonestown Massacre-18Anyone who has seen the 2004 documentary Dig! knows that anything can happen at a Brian Jonestown Massacre show. Fortunately there were no intra-band fisticuffs or altercations with the audience. But there was a fair bit of drama as the band seemed to wrestle with their sound gear early on causing them to stop and restart a couple of songs. But in the end, the music won out as the 7-piece band turned in a sprawling, shambolic set that lasted almost three hours.

Anton Newcombe led the band out to the Powerstation stage at 9:45 to the cheers of a nearly-full house. For this tour the band consists of Newcombe on guitar and vocals with long-time sidekick and tambourine player Joel Gion…he of the mighty muttonchops…helping out on vocals. There were two other guitarists, Ryan Carlson (aka Ryan van Kriedt) and Ricky Maymi, who begin his career in the band as the drummer back in 1990…he played 12-string guitar exclusively here. The band was filled out by keyboard player Rob Campanella, who also played guitar from time to time, bass player Colin Hegna and Dan Allaire on drums.

The band is celebrating their 25th anniversary and they covered pretty much their entire career over the 28 songs performed on this night, beginning with an early obscurity, Never, Ever, which showed up as a bonus track from their 1993 release, Spacegirl And Other Favorites.

It was a slow-building, lysergic start to the evening as the band found its groove.

After Pish, taken from their new EP, Newcombe counted the band into Lantern, a track from 1998’s Strung Out In Heaven. Anton seemed to be counting in many of the songs and they spent quite a bit of time between tunes discussing matters between themselves, leading me to assume that they had a new drummer. But that was not the case, so I’m not sure what the problem was.

Well, one problem they seemed to be having involved the stage monitors. During Leave It Alone and again two songs later during When Jokers Attack, the band stopped mid-song and started again after commenting on the monitors.

“We’ve been told we can play as long as we want. Sooner or later we’ll catch on. It takes a little while sometimes,’ announced Newcombe.

He made good on both promises…playing 28 songs in just under three hours and finally getting the band to find its groove.

“We’ll get around to all of them as long as the beer holds up and the toilets don’t clog,” was his answer to fans intent on calling out requests. At one point Newcombe held up the set list to show a fan when his or her fave would be turning up in the set.

By this time the band had locked in and the majority of the set was a blissful groove.  At one point there were four guitars going, two of them 12-strings, making for a psychedelic wall of sound.

Bassist Colin Hegna stepped forward to add his vocals to Who? and after That Girl Suicide, Joel left the stage as the band got stuck into a long, instrumental jam.

For a band that’s been around for over a quarter of a century, they seemed to still have trouble with the basics. In addition to their monitor problems, the band seemed somewhat confused when it came time to leave the stage.

Shortly after midnight they asked, shall we play a few more songs?”, then left the stage briefly while some guitar tuning took place.

After She’s Gone, most of the band got up and left while Anton was reaching for another guitar to start the next song. They finally regrouped and played a track from this year’s Musique de Film Imagine.

Things finally came to a chaotic, if satisfying end at 12:23 as Anton as his troops closed with Going To Hell.

It seemed like things could have gone either way tonight…brilliant or a mess. Fortunately, it was closer to brilliant…but only just.

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Isaac Newcombe:

The Brian Jonestown Massacre set list:

  1. Never, Ever
  2. Pish
  3. Lantern
  4. Stairway To The Best Party In The Universe
  5. Goodbye (Butterfly)
  6. Anemone
  7. Vat Hande Met Dem?
  8. Leave It Alone
  9. Jennifer
  10. When Jokers Attack
  11. The Devil May Care (Mom And Dad Don’t)
  12. Prozac v Heroin
  13. Telegram
  14. Wisdom
  15. Open Heart Surgery
  16. Servo
  17. Who?
  18. Whatever Hippie Bitch
  19. That Girl Suicide
  20. Instrumental
  21. Sailor
  22. Here Comes Waiting For The Sun
  23. Nevertheless
  24. Days, Weeks & Moths
  25. What You Isn’t
  26. She’s Gone
  27. Philadelphie Story
  28. Going To Hell

 

Marty Duda
Latest posts by Marty Duda (see all)