Friday, April 10, 2009
The Spin Brian Jonestown Massacre at Exit/In 4/9/09
Posted by The Spin on Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 12:28 PM
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It's tough to write up last night's show by the formerly notorious San Francisco pscyh-rock vets Brian Jonestown Massacre without bringing up the semi-celebrity they acquired by way of the hit indie documentary DiG!. Much like the movie, from which better than 90% of their semi-celebrity derives, this has almost nothing to do with the band's music.
We walked into the Exit/In having missed opening act The Flavor Crystals, finding instead a room packed full of fans cheering and jeering as BJM walked onstage, then looked at each other and tuned instruments for a good five minutes before breaking out their first tune. The group commenced with a string of sleepy, mid-tempo, semi-noisy, melody-driven hallucinogenics.
Annoying taunts from multiple male patrons persisted between songs, which we assume were intended to illicit a reaction from the band's oft-troubled leader Anton Newcomb. Anyone else who came expecting the volatile train-wreck persona made famous in the documentary surely went home disappointed. Newcomb ignored the catcalls completely, and the singer-songwriter once infamous for fighting audience members maintained a sober, steady focus on his trudging, fuzzy traipse into spacey, retro-flavored, shag-carpeted terrain.
In fact, there were very few surprises or even deviations from the 120 BPM tempo and vibrating melodies the band grooved on throughout the show. The lone exception came in the form of a drumloop-driven psychedelic industrial rap excursion somewhere around mid-set, during which Newcomb rocked the mic with a tale of a drug hunt gone violent. Those who came in with reasonable expectations of the band's signature pastiche of '60s psychedelia no doubt got their money's worth. Everyone else would just have to go home and put DiG! in their Netflix queue.
Comments (8)
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Such a tepid review for such a great show. Not a single song title mentioned. Not even a mention of the fairly jovial mood of the band (who have been on good behavior the last few times I have seen them). That Dig! is such a reference point for this band is a shame...it takes up way too much of live review word counts. It actually should be very easy to write up a review with out mentioning the movie. The band has released a TON of music over the years (great music, I would argue), tours constantly and has improved as a live band. If your knowledge of the band begins and ends with the movie, well, that's one thing. Having nothing to say about that concert is quite another.
FYI, Dig! is on Hulu, so not even Netflix subscription is required to view it.
When half the audience is only there because of the movie, i'd say that makes it tough not to mention.
Despite BJM having been at it for the better part of two decades, the band is much like Daniel Johnston in that their story by way of an award-winning docudrama is going to precede them when it comes to mass consumption.
yeah. the band has a massive discography to pull from, but like me, most of the audience wasn't familiar with it. given the taunting and jeering, a lot of them were obviously there in hopes of a spectacle, or to see the fragile psyche of an alleged "mad genius" in action. and -- like their movie -- this I found more interesting than the music.
no doubt a fan would have given this show a much more in depth write-up. This is just how it worked out.
I caught their Exit In set from like... 4 years ago? I had only known them from non-doc sources and was curious to see them even then and, honestly, wasn't expecting to be as impressed as I was with their set. Would have liked to have seen them last night.
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