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Anton Newcombe and his band, the San Francisco based,
psychedelic/ rock ensemble The Brian Jonestown Massacre are back in the UK after a four weeks stint across mainland Europe and somewhat back where they started mid-May.
It has been a long and prolific tour of sold out venues across many cities and a testimony to BJM’s long standing cult following on the part of many a loyal fan, and no doubt some curiosity driven new recruits following the release of Ondi Timoner’s documentary ‘Dig!’ charting the rocky road to ‘success’ for The BJM and friend/ rival band The Dandy Warhols.
Members of the audience who turned up tonight expecting some of the chaos depicted in ‘Dig!’ must have left The Academy rather disappointed as tonight’s performance is as far removed from a freak show as can be.
No band member was sacked and no roady lost his job.
Only long standing guitar player Ricky Rene Maymi got reprimanded, “Your distortion pedals sound like shit” quipped Anton between two songs. |
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The first thing I noticed is the absence of sideburns wearing, idiosyncratic tambourine shaker extraordinaire, Joel Gion, who only missed the last week of the tour due to an early return to The States to attend to personal commitments.
The tambourine plays such an intrinsic part in all of Anton’s sophisticated compositions that it’s easy to notice the void, however not enough to spoil the show.
There is no set list as such and the audience is invited to make suggestions, so we get to hear the usual classics: ‘Feel So Good’, ‘Who’ [an opportunity for the guys to holler in unison], ‘Nevertheless’ and a lot more.
Some tracks are a self-indulgent ten minutes jam, showing off impeccable skills from the six musicians before us.
I am particularly impressed by drummer Daniel Allaire.
The tracks do not blend into one another as there is a short pause for Anton to change guitars, retune and swig from his bottle of Smirnoff Vodka.
That’s when members of the packed audience will yell for them to “come on!”, and that’s when Anton, not liking to be told what to do, will start with the expletives and the derogatory comments and a few banalities will be exchanged between hecklers and increasingly intoxicated, shirtless maestro.
But somewhat no amount of provocation will side track Anton’s determination to play music.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre do not have the inclination to play games, leave the stage, get people demanding an encore and get back out there to screams of delight...how predictable.
Instead we have a solid two hours of music only stopped by the venue’s usual ‘curfew’ of 11pm.
It’s difficult to describe the disappointment on Anton’s face as lights were turned on and they had to exit the stage.
As I met Anton backstage for an interview, his first concern was that the fans might feel let down by such a short performance.
He was quite outraged that someone dared pull the plug on them and thought that The BJM could have given so much more.
When you’ve got some ten, eleven LPs worth of material to choose from I would imagine that a two hour show seems quite short.
After the success of this tour The Brian Jonestown Massacre should be back to Europe before the year is out, no doubt playing bigger and better venues.
Hopefully the days of people turning up in the hope of witnessing some outrageous antics are over and the only reason to purchase a ticket to a BJM gig is to appreciate two hours of exquisite sun-radiating psychedelia that Anton has created for people to hear.
This is what it’s all about for him. Write some tunes, give them away on the BJM website and produce his band live on stage.
Anton is his own worst enemy often capable of self-sabotage but tonight his tantrum throwing, capricious, petulant alter-ego is nowhere to be seen and it feels good.
Words: Florence ACHERY
www.brianjonestownmassacre.com
www.myspace.com/brianjonestownmassacre |
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The Brian Jonestown Massacre |
