Ride / Dead Horse One - Live 2017.11.05 Festsaal Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany

In recent years, three of the biggest and best shoegaze bands (My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride) reformed, went on tour, and eventually released a new album. In each case, I saw a live appearance before they'd released any new music, then purchased their new album, and then have seen them live again. In each case, the new album was no disappointment. With My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, the second show was markedly better than the first, almost like the new album infused them with newfound energy or confidence. I even gave the Slowdive show I saw a month ago an A+. However, I'd already given Ride an A+ the first time I saw them (at Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2015), so my expectations for this show were rather high.

Artist: Ride

Venue: Festsaal Kreuzberg

Location: Berlin, Germany

Date: 5 November 2017

Opening Act: Dead Horse One

Setlist:
01. Lannoy Point

02. Charm Assault

03. Seagull

04. Weather Diaries

05. Taste

06. Dreams Burn Down

07. Pulsar

08. Cali

09. Twisterella

10. Impermanence

11. Lateral Alice

12. From Time to Time

13. Leave Them All Behind

14. All I Want

15. OX4

16. Vapour Trail

17. Drive Blind

Encore:

18. Rocket Silver Symphony

19. Grasshopper [with Anton Newcombe]

20. Chelsea Girl

Dead Horse One are a five-piece from France. They played a strong and entrancing set that seemed like a perfect match for Ride. Other than the obvious shoegazer link, they drew from the psych sound of bands like The Black Angels. They would fit in quite well with at Levitation! They let the keyboard take a lot of the melodic role while the two guitarists created a dense, warm ball of sound. There were a few bits of reverb-laden gothic rock guitar as well as moments of heavier, darker energy. I was actually disappointed that they only played for a terse 30 minutes.

[Dead Horse One with a guest tambourinist.]

Ride came out to the sound of the keyboard that opens their new album, Weather Diaries. They ended up playing most of the new album, but interspersed it with several of the best tracks from their early classic albums and EPs. Some of their new songs ("Charm Assault", "Cali") have a distinct pop angle, but the band has still retained their core astral guitar sound. Early in the set, the band proved that they haven't shunned their roots by jamming out an extended and captivating take on "Seagull". Other particularly strong classic songs were "Dreams Burn Down", "Leave Them All Behind", and "OX4".

The incorporation of electronic elements is often a challenge on stage, but the band handled it comfortably by treating their occasional backing tracks as a mere backdrop to add just a bit of texture behind the main attractions. "All I Want", a song that is on the line of sounding like an annoying electronic pop remix, came through surprisingly well. Although some of the other new songs felt a bit weak and less energetic than the classics, there were no duds, and I appreciate their willingness to write and perform new material. We were even treated to one of the first performances of their new non-album single "Pulsar", released just a couple weeks before the show.

By the time they got to "OX4" and "Vapour Trail", the closing tracks of their best two albums, I was expecting the show to end at any moment, but they didn't slow down. "Drive Blind" sounded even better than the original studio version, and they did their standard trick of extending with a long noise jam in the middle.

[Ride.]

And then came the encore. First they played "Rocket Silver Symphony", which featured drummer Laurence Colbert's vocals in the verses, and then they introduced a guest: Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, who happens to live in Berlin! They elected to play "Grasshopper", a b-side from 1992 that they claimed never to have played live before (although setlist.fm disagrees). Newcombe's guitar wasn't very high in the mix, so it wasn't entirely obvious what he contributed, but it was still cool.

The quality of the mix was the one issue that distracted from a great set. It is possible that my position near the back of the venue was at fault, but throughout the entire show, the vocals were muddy and indistinct. The bass lacked punch and the whole package lacked clarity. It took away from some of the power and intricacy of their performance.

The new material might not be their best, but in some sense Weather Diaries seems like an alternate version of where they could have gone in the mid-90s. After the raw, early-era My Bloody Valentine ripoff of the Ride and Play EPs (both 1990), the sublime shoegaze of Nowhere (1990) and the Fall (1990) and Today Forever EPs (1991), and the slightly more mainstream, power pop-inflected Going Blank Again (1992), what if they had tried out an electronic edge instead of espousing generic 90s rock cliché and regurgitating bland 60s references? It seems like everyone, including the band, would rather forget their latter-day albums Carnival of Light (1994) and Tarantula (1996). (They only played one song, "From Time to Time", from the former and nothing from the latter.)

Despite a few flaws, Ride played a strong show, and I appreciated that they kept going for two hours. It wasn't quite as perfect as the last time I saw them, but I like their new album (and single), and I'm glad they were willing and able to grow and still keep their best elements.

[Ride with Anton Newcombe.]

Scores:

Dead Horse One: A-

Ride: A-

Smile (compilation of Ride and Play EPs): B

Nowhere (with or without the Fall EP appended): A+

Today Forever EP: A+

Going Blank Again: A-

Carnival of Light: D

Tarantula: D

Weather Diaries: B+

Levitation 2016 Day 1

Levitation has a bit of a mixed track record, although I still think it's the best festival in town in terms of the quality of the music, which is of course the most important criterion anyway. Last year, I was so frustrated by the failure of the shuttle system that I wasn't sure I wanted to come back this year. (The rainstorms and mud didn't help, either.) However, they once again put together an incredible lineup and I decided to give it another go. In fact, I bought tickets for both Friday and Saturday.

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, the festival was canceled as of 5pm on Thursday. Heavy thunderstorms were looming once again, and the festival site was already worse for wear from storms throughout the last week. The organizers rushed to put together as many shows at local venues as they could manage, but unfortunately most of them sold out as soon as they went on sale, as the demand was understandably out of control. I failed to procure any tickets, but decided to try to see what I could see anyway.

Event: Levitation 2016 Day 1

Venues: KUTX Studio 1A and Scoot Inn

Location: Austin, Texas

Date: 29 April 2016

Details about the make-up shows were a bit scarce and initially available only through Facebook and Twitter. The Austin Chronicle began keeping track of them, and I saw that one of the bands I was interested in, Dungen, would be making an appearance at KUTX. I mentioned this to a friend, and he immediately was on board, so we rushed to the University of Texas campus, found a parking spot, and made it to the radio station studio just in time to be let in.

All I knew about Dungen was that they were Swedish and occupied a space somewhere between psych, folk, and prog. The started playing something that sounded like standard-issue indie rock, but driven by a grand piano and a prominent bass. However, as the song progressed, it gradually turned into a serious prog rock jam. It slowly wound down, but without really pausing, the band started into the next song, which led into another tremendous jam. At the end of the third iteration of this pattern, someone whispered in the singer's ear and they brought the show to an end. They only played for fifteen or twenty minutes, but it was a fantastic journey. The instrumental work was top-notch, the harmonies were transcendent, and the jams were captivating without being excessive. It was just a shame they didn't get more time.

[Dungen at KUTX.]

It was before, during, and immediately after this set that the fiasco of the make-up show tickets occurred. Around 2:30, Levitation announced a series of make-up gigs, with a claim that ticket holders would have advance access. This took the form of an email sent at about 2:50 that contained the same links to Transmission Events ticketing pages that were available on the Levitation website. The tickets were supposed to go on sale at either 3 or 3:30 (reports varied), but it fact they appeared to go on sale at variable times throughout the hour. I tried my best, but I did not get tickets for anything. They all sold out with incredible speed. There was really only one that I was really, really interested in, though: Slowdive with The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Twin Peaks at the Scoot Inn. In desperation, I scoured the internet for scalpers, but I could only find others looking for the same tickets.

At this point, it was clear that it wasn't actually going to rain that day. This matters, because Scoot Inn is an outdoor venue. Admittedly, it was odd that an event that was canceled due to weather would be moved in part to an outdoor venue, but I guess it worked out. I decided to head to the venue and try my chances at getting a ticket on the spot. I biked on down and quickly realized I was one of many looking for a ticket. I gave up as soon as I realized that there was a grassy parking lot adjacent to the venue's stage that was full of people hoping to catch some of the scattered sound waves. I found a decent spot where I could see the speaker racks on stage, sat down, and waited to see what happened. This was my view when Twin Peaks went on:

[Twin Peaks at Scoot Inn.]

It wasn't a perfect experience, but I was excited for the show and figured it was worth making the most of it. Realistically, I couldn't see anything, and the audio wasn't as good as I'm sure it was inside, but I could still hear enough to enjoy it. (It also helped to have a friend join me and bring beer.) I'm going to do my best to review what I heard, although my scores will be admittedly somewhat tentative. I doubt my experience truly represents what the bands offered to the people inside.

Twin Peaks played a sort of catchy but rather generic garage rock. They seemed to play rock 'n' roll fairly straight and by-the-numbers, but I appreciated that they did have some finesse about it. They were skilled at dropping in little rhythmic flourishes and shifts that kept their set from getting too boring. They didn't seem particularly sophisticated, but they sounded better than their studio work had led me to expect.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre were up next. I actually saw them at Levitation two years ago, back when it was still Austin Psych Fest, and they were the topmost headliner after Primal Scream dropped out. That time around, they played good music, but they went on late, only played for 45 minutes, and were plagued by sound issues. This year there were no major sound problems, but they still only played for about an hour since they weren't the headliner. They again featured an abundance of guitarists that all mostly played the same thing, and while it did make for a fairly big, warm sound, it also was a somewhat monolithic or monotonous sound. They played consistently good grooves, but rarely played something really thrilling. The vocals had a characteristic sort of lazy, stoned quality to them, which contributed to a fairly mellow mood despite their classic rock obsessions. The side of their music more akin to shoegazing, as represented by their early album Methodrone (from which they played "She's Gone"), came to the fore. I suppose it was only appropriate considering the headliner, although I may have just been reading into it because of the pairing, and my removed location may have influenced my perception as well. An incomplete setlist can be found here.

[The Brian Jonestown Massacre at Scoot Inn.]

Finally, Slowdive came on stage. Here's the setlist (with some help from here):

01. Slowdive
02. Avalyn
03. Catch the Breeze
04. Crazy for You
05. Machine Gun
06. Souvlaki Space Station
07. When the Sun Hits
08. Morningrise
09. She Calls
10. Alison
11. Golden Hair (James Joyce/Syd Barrett cover)

Ever since they reunited in 2014, Slowdive have relied on a fairly regular setlist for their shows. It's hard to complain, though, since it's a solid collection of songs. It is quite biased towards Souvlaki, and includes more EP tracks than anything from either other album, but that's probably a fair representation of their best work. Naturally, they started with the eponymous "Slowdive" from their debut self-titled EP.

Slowdive also have a tendency to let their three guitarists meld their sound together into one big sound, but they make it work more successfully. While The Brian Jonestown Massacre aim for a thick chorus effect, Slowdive develop a gigantic wall of sound. They rely on a variety of guitar effects, driving bass, and airy vocals to build up their desired atmosphere. It makes for a beautiful and hazy sound that just washes over you in waves. While the music flowed past, the vocals were mostly indecipherable, although that's fairly par for the course with shoegazing acts. At any rate, the music was somewhat heavier and more intense than on record, which may reveal the insufficiencies of the production available to them at the time. At the point in "When the Sun Hits" where the song really picks up, it felt huge. It's already a great song on record, but this performance felt transcendent. Some other songs admittedly seemed a bit vague and meandering, but most of them were a wonderful experience to bask in.

Final Thoughts: This was a strange day by any metric. It was very disappointing to have the festival canceled, especially with such short notice, but it would seem that Travis County made the call and that was that. (Apparently the flooding concerns were bad enough that the Lower Colorado River Authority decreed that camping by the river would not be permissible.) Although Friday was ultimately a clear day, overnight it stormed heavily. Levitation and Carson Creek Ranch posted pictures the following morning showing the devastating results: thoroughly flooded grounds, knocked-down fences and portapotties, and destroyed tents. It turns out they made the right call. (Amazingly, there were claims floating around the internet that Levitation conspired to cancel the event since it didn't sell out and they could recoup the insurance benefits. This makes no sense when you consider that the festival has never sold out.)

Despite my frustration and disappointment, I can't really say I'm upset, since it was clear that Levitation wasn't happy with the situation and was trying to make the most of it. I was far angrier after the shuttle situation of last year. However, while I sympathize with Levitation and trust that they are a committed, local organization dedicated more to the music than to the money, that's not to say they handled everything as well as they could have.

Levitation did a great job of putting together last minute shows all weekend, but disseminating the details was occasionally difficult. On the positive side, the shows were all $5 (or free) and all proceeds went to the Austin Relief Alliance. Much less positive was the fact that ticket holders were not actually given any sort of advance opportunity to purchase these tickets, despite the initial claim. This was particularly unfortunate for people that had traveled from out of town; all of their planning and early orders did nothing for them. In fact, the line of people that formed outside Scoot Inn for the Slowdive show got entirely screwed over. Supposedly, despite initial promises that they'd get the first chance at tickets, they were told at the last minute that they'd too have to use the overburdened website to try to buy tickets like everyone else. Since the tickets were cheap and could be bought in sets of up to four, there was a lot of complaining about scalpers, although I'm not actually sure how much of that really occurred. I've heard one report of a $75 resale, but not much else.

In the end, I still got to listen to two of the bands I wanted to see, and I caught a brief set of another, and that was all for free. It wasn't what I was hoping for, but it was better than nothing. I was far from alone; there were multiple hundreds of people in the fields and on the street around Scoot Inn, and I'd bet many of the other make-up venues had external crowds. I'm very disappointed that I lost my chance to see David J and the Gentlemen Thieves, and I missed out on Brian Wilson, Animal Collective, Woods, Lee Ranaldo, and plenty of others. On the other hand, I did see some interesting sights at the Scoot Inn parking lot, like this:

[Firedancer outside Scoot Inn.]

Scores:

Dungen: A-

Twin Peaks: C+

The Brian Jonestown Massacre: B

Slowdive: A-

P.S. Many thanks to Mustafa!

P.P.S. What does it say about my luck (or the effect of climate change on Texas) that I have held tickets for the only Levitation to ever be canceled as well as the only day of Austin City Limits Fest to be canceled thus far?

[Edit 2016.05.03:] P.P.P.S. Phone video footage of the entire Slowdive set can be found here, and an mp3 of the entire Dungen set can be downloaded from KUTX here.

[Edit 2016.05.12:] P.P.P.P.S. The setlist of the Dungen radio appearance is here.

Austin Psych Fest 2014 Day 2 (Part 2)

Introduction: This is a continuation of my previous post about Austin Psych Fest. That post introduced the event and discussed the first six or so bands I saw during the day. This post will cover the six or so bands I saw in the evening and conclude with some additional analytic remarks.

I think the attendance of the day's festivities peaked around the time Temples went on stage, or at least that seemed to be the most crowded show I saw all day. It's understandable; I think some of the early arrivers were getting ready to leave, but the latecomers were certainly there by then (the set started at 8:15pm), and the band has been getting a lot of hype. It's not without reason: Temples are a classic psychedelic band, marrying a blues/hard rock core with spacey sounds, lots of effects, and an otherworldly, slightly mystic vibe. (I mean, consider their name!) Live, the spaciness was less apparent and the rock was a little more in focus. They seemed to float between being a Tame Impala ripoff and a less melodramatic Led Zeppelin acolyte. I like the style, and the sound is good, but it still seems like it's missing something to make it really special. I watched them soundcheck and caught the singer asking for the vocals to be pushed as loud as possible. They were almost certainly the only band at the festival to make such a request, and it went a long way to make them stand out. Maybe that makes them too conventional, but I appreciated being able to understand the words.

[Temples. My last picture of the night, taken as darkness was falling.]

I then went back to the Levitation Tent to lie down and listen to Mono for a while. They are an instrumental rock band, and I'm absolutely sure I'm far from the first person to make the Godspeed You! Black Emperor comparison. Admittedly, they have very different ideas of what instrumental rock can be, but their guitar tone was very similar (I recently dubbed it "bulldozer guitar" because of the thick, distorted delay effects) and the sense of dynamic rising-and-falling seemed familiar from the GY!BE playbook. It's probably an unfair comparison, but I couldn't help thinking of it while I was listening. The guitarwork was good, but I think their overall sound is just a little too guitar-heavy. Without vocals, I think other instruments, or at least more focus on the bass and drums, might have made things more exciting.

Next up for me was Unknown Mortal Orchestra, whom I'd heard of but never listened to. I gather they have quite a following, and I was initially hesitant to buy in, but I made myself give them a fair chance, and I found myself enjoying it. They performed as a power trio, with the singer/guitarist as the clear central figure. I was expecting to resent his showmanship (ugh, what's the gender-neutral version of that word?), but I actually found his solos quite appealing, and I liked that the drummer fit right in with them and complemented the guitar. Even if the frontperson was the focus, it was clear that the other members had important contributions to make. The sound was a little hard or heavy, but balanced by a pop feel.

Setlist (borrowed completely from here):
1. The Opposite of Afternoon
2. Thought Ballune

3. How Can You Luv Me

4. Strangers Are Strange

5. Monki

6. Ffunny Ffrends

7. So Good at Being in Trouble

8. Boy Witch

I intended to catch some of Acid Mothers Temple at the Elevation Amphitheatre, but the riverbanks were about as full as they could be, so I decided to give Medicine a shot instead. They seemed to be in line with the shoegaze trend, very similar to My Bloody Valentine. It was like a mix of the drone and trance of a song like "Soon" with the darker, thicker mesh of guitars of Isn't Anything. I found the music to be a little too static and invariant. The bass was pleasantly prominent but yet rather simple. The vocals weaved some good harmonies, but they sounded fairly vague and low in the mix.

Setlist (borrowed in full from here):
1. Christmas Song
2. Long As the Sun
3. The Pink
4. Miss Drugstore
5. The Reclaimed Girl
6. Never Click
7. Farther Down
8. Aruca
Encore:
9. One More

I left their set early to get a decent spot to see The Horrors. They immediately had a stage presence and atmosphere that seemed right out of the gothy, synthy era of the late 70s and early 80s. Their sound would have fit right in with Gary Numan or some corners of the Siouxsie & the Banshees catalog. I had a nagging feeling that they sounded identical to one of my favorite bands, but I couldn't (and still can't) figure out which one, which probably means they absorbed the influences of some of my old favorites and made something new out of it, which should probably be considered an impressive feat. I liked the post-punk bass and the big, moody synthesizer. The singer seemed a little dark and gloomy, almost to a fault, since I couldn't understand him at all. The guitarist started out the set only contributing a useless mess of noise, but by the end he was playing riffs that fit right in. Despite that particular improvement, I actually thought their set kind of dragged downwards as it went on. I enjoyed it, but couldn't connect with it like I thought I should have. It probably wasn't helping that the lightshow was bothering me greatly by that point.

I was getting pretty worn down by that point, so I just sat down and waited for The Brian Jonestown Massacre to start. Most bands only had 30 minutes between sets and 45 minutes to play, and while the Horrors had been given an hour to play, BJM were still scheduled to go on a half hour after that. Despite their 12:15am billing, they were still setting up at that time. They finally hit the stage at 12:45.

Setlist (thanks to here for filling in the holes):
01. Whoever You Are
02. Who?
03. What You Isn't
04. Jennifer
05. Anemone
06. The Devil May Care (Mom & Dad Don't)
07. When Jokers Attack
08. Sailor
09. No Come Down
10. Days, Weeks and Moths
11. Oh Lord

Admittedly, the setlist was awesome, even if they didn't really play any of their "hits". They mixed several classics from their great 90s albums with a few new tracks ("What You Isn't", "Days, Weeks and Moths"). They claimed that they had never played two of the songs live before ("The Devil May Care", "No Come Down"), both of which were great tracks that I was happy to hear. It was also great to see longtime member Matt Hollywood back in the band; he even sang lead on two songs ("No Come Down", "Oh Lord").

But that's about where the party ends. First of all, the band itself is confusing. Their current form has eight members: frontperson/singer/guitarist Anton Newcombe, apparent second-in-command/guitarist/vocalist Matt Hollywood, two other guitarists, a keyboardist/guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, and the humorously odd tambourinist Joel Gion. For having four (or sometimes five) guitarists, you'd expect a lot of nuance to their sound, but in fact, they usually all played the exact some chords. Some were even playing what appeared to be identical instruments. The music was cool, but I couldn't help but feel like there were some inherently wasted opportunities. At times one of the guitarists would play a lead line recognizable from the recordings, but the others would still be sharing a single part.

Second, partway into their set, the sound of horrible, all-consuming feedback enveloped the soundscape. It wasn't the ear-destroying screeching of microphone feedback, but more akin to the loud, warm sound of a giant engine. It didn't destroy the music, but it was louder than it, and it kept going for several songs, only fading when they paused between songs. By watching the performers carefully, it was clear that Anton's semi-hollow guitar was the culprit – and I've heard the same voluminous sound from similar instruments. Oddly, no one else seemed to notice, not on stage nor in the crowd. I wondered if I was just in some terrible type of dead zone, but I moved through the crowd and it wouldn't go away. After four or five songs, it finally faded away for good, but it had ruined half of their set in the meantime. I don't understand how their extra half-hour of soundchecking resulted in them having the worst sound of any performer at the festival. How did they get that so wrong? Perhaps having so many redundant guitarists didn't help the problem.

But that's not even the worst thing. Since they started a half-hour late, and I had heard the festival was to end at 1:30, I assumed they'd still give us 75 minutes of music as scheduled. Like I said before, certainly no noise ordinance could be in effect, so who would mind if they played late? However, at 1:30, they unceremoniously bowed out, awkwardly looking at each other and questioningly laying down instruments. They finally mumbled some words of appreciation and then left. The audience cheered for more, but house lights and PA music came on, and stage hands came out, indicating that the show was over. No encore. 11 songs, 45 minutes. That was it. The topmost-billed headliner of the entire festival only played for 45 minutes!

Final Thoughts: First, a word about the environment. Being a ranch, the location isn't exactly great, but there is something nice about being a little removed from the big city and closer to nature. However, the only natural benefit was the backdrop of the Colorado River, and the city is actually inescapable because the airport is very close by and planes continually fly low overhead. My experience was rather dusty, hot, smelly, sunny, and windy, but not so much of any one thing so as to be terribly annoying. In fact, listing those things in sequence makes it sound worse than it was. What was truly annoying was the lightshow. In fact, I'm not sure if it can even be called a lightshow if in practice it just meant blinding the audience. Seriously, those lasers were pointed right at my eyes for almost the entire set by the Horrors and much of the other evening sets as well. I thought I had paid money to see bands play live, not stand in a crowd with my eyes closed.

The other annoying thing was that there was absolutely no oversight of the shuttles at the end of the night. A line formed, but when I say "line", I mean "mob", and it got a little pushy after the first shuttle filled up and we had to wait for the next one, which was going to a different location anyway. I did get on the third one, but there were plenty of people still left behind after that.

I think the overall experience was cool. Ultimately, I didn't really see any great performances, but I did see a lot of good bands, and I had a fun time. I think the sum was actually better than the parts. I'm still not going to give an "overall score" as I have occasionally done before, but don't let all the B grades make you think I didn't enjoy it enough.

Scores:
Temples: B
Mono: B-
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: B+
Medicine: B-
The Horrors: B
The Brian Jonestown Massacre: D+

P.S. BJM is a really good band, and I'm not happy about giving them such a low score, but that's what they deserve. It might not even have been their fault; it's entirely possible that the sound techs, the venue staff, or someone else entirely sabotaged their sound and schedule. Whatever the case, it could have been so much more.