Post by goo on Jul 24, 2002 20:19:41 GMT -5
I don’t know what the rest of the crowd expected, but my expectations were high. After some ‘ify’ reviews or opinions, from friends (except for Spectator's of course), of the Sydney show, I was wondering whether the Melbourne crowd was anticipating a Jesus & Mary Chain like wall of chainsaw fuzz. I’m well aware of the parallels the music press has drawn between the BRMC and JMC sound, as I can hear them too, though I find BRMC more soulful and certainly less fuzzed out. The show was sold out, though surprisingly (a nice surprise at that) not packed to the rafters, which made for a very comfortable atmosphere.
I’ll skip the opening band, ‘Cassette’, as the originality and creativity of their name pretty much summed up what they were like.
So the night started out for me with opening of the BRMC set, and the beautifully haunting ‘red eyes and tears’, however tonight’s rendition (and that of another fave, ‘love burns’ a couple of songs later) gave me a foreboding of what the rest of the gig might be like. The soundscape was patchy at best with a few strange notes being hit and overall it sounded like only a portion PA was being utilised. They seemed to struggle on for a while, playing almost shyly, but slowly lifting the intensity. Brick by brick they built the wall of noise until halfway through the set the band had hit it’s straps and the songs reverberated with a fullness that only an intense live performance can produce. The highlight of the set for me was ‘failsafe’, a track I hadn’t really rated before, but after hearing it live I’m glad I hadn’t, and it was one of only two songs they jammed out. The final ear splitting fuzz & feedback of the encore, ‘salvation’, was something My Bloody Valentine or JMC would have been proud of, but BRMC had set themselves apart from those 80’s bands, even if the building blocks were there to remind us.
My verdict, for a show I was expecting to be ‘the gig of year’, awesome!
I’ll skip the opening band, ‘Cassette’, as the originality and creativity of their name pretty much summed up what they were like.
So the night started out for me with opening of the BRMC set, and the beautifully haunting ‘red eyes and tears’, however tonight’s rendition (and that of another fave, ‘love burns’ a couple of songs later) gave me a foreboding of what the rest of the gig might be like. The soundscape was patchy at best with a few strange notes being hit and overall it sounded like only a portion PA was being utilised. They seemed to struggle on for a while, playing almost shyly, but slowly lifting the intensity. Brick by brick they built the wall of noise until halfway through the set the band had hit it’s straps and the songs reverberated with a fullness that only an intense live performance can produce. The highlight of the set for me was ‘failsafe’, a track I hadn’t really rated before, but after hearing it live I’m glad I hadn’t, and it was one of only two songs they jammed out. The final ear splitting fuzz & feedback of the encore, ‘salvation’, was something My Bloody Valentine or JMC would have been proud of, but BRMC had set themselves apart from those 80’s bands, even if the building blocks were there to remind us.
My verdict, for a show I was expecting to be ‘the gig of year’, awesome!
,
.