You’d have needed a stick of butter and the force of one thousand horses to get through to the front of the stage at The Hi-Fi on Saturday had you showed up late. Punters were standing elbow to elbow and arse to arse in the dimly lit venue as they awaited the arrival of the shamanic Alex Maas and his cosmic raiders The Black Angels. Indeed Melbourne has a thriving psychedelic scene, and this was made more and more blatantly obvious as The Black Angels’ set neared, with fans who had been waiting as long as six to seven years for them to reach Australian shores filling out the venue.
Joel Gion of The Brian Jonestown Massacre (and poster child of the ‘play tambourine – travel the world’ movement) preceded the band of the night, DJing a set of his favourite tunes. It’s a little bit strange having a DJ set supporting the band of the night, but if anyone can get away with it, you know that Joel can. Armed with an almost unsettling charismatic stage presence, he’s awfully good at standing around and making whatever he happens to be doing somehow look immensely exciting (ie: playing tambourine), and his DJ set was no exception. Disappointingly this meant that he didn’t play any of his new solo music, which would have been interesting to see, but his DJ set was still enjoyable and seemed to get the crowd sufficiently pumped for The Black Angels’ set.
The Black Angels took to the stage with clouds of velvety mysticism billowing around their ankles. The crowd was in uproar when they set into the first song of the night, ‘Young Men Dead’. Evidently they were getting it over and done with early, having most likely heard it one too many times over the past month, as it has just been featured in a Cadillac commercial. If the band is sick of playing it you wouldn’t have known it though, and the crowd most certainly weren’t sick of hearing it either.
Painted with an enigmatic vapour, the set seemed to fog up like the windows of a car on a wintery night, with each player in the band playing his or her own important role in the performance, adding to an overall dense and smoky texture. Maas’ vocals were absolutely mesmerising and sometimes disturbing the whole way through, seeming to detail a great deal of knowledge and understanding, perhaps beyond his years. Meanwhile Christian Bland’s guitar seductively swirled the audience into a hypnotized state, with Stephanie Bailey’s almost primal drumming keeping them somewhat alert. The boys in the audience seemed particularly ‘moved’ by Bailey’s drumming, and with a quick look around the venue, a lot of the punters in attendance (male and female) seemed to have their eyes fixed on her as the set moved along.
Songs from the band’s debut album Passover seemed to be crowd favourites, with ‘Manipulation’, ‘The Prodigal Sun’ and ‘Black Grease’, all getting great reactions. ‘Manipulation’ seemed to be sung with a bit more desperation than in the recording on Maas’ front as he evocatively screeched the chorus to the crowd. Bland sung the verses in this song, which were just as spellbinding as in the recording, seeming to have to the audience swaying in unison.
The style of movement in the audience changed somewhat dramatically during songs from their new LP Phosphene Dream, which is a bit of a step in a new direction for the band. This was made most noticeable in ‘Telephone’, which had everyone in attendance abruptly switching from a hazy sway to a good ol’ fashioned sixties twist. ‘Telephone’ panned out to be another crowd favourite, and although it’s only a short song, everyone in the audience appeared to be short of breath when it came to an end.
If you think that you’ve heard all that you need to hear after hearing one of The Black Angels’ recordings, you couldn’t be more wrong. Their live performances encapsulate an energy and intensity that, for lack of better a better phrase, seem to leave you completely speechless. You know that you’ve been to a good gig when rather than feeling happy that you’ve seen them when it’s over, you’re left feeling nothing but bitter that you won’t be seeing them again for some time. That is the exact feeling that appeared to encompass attendees as The Black Angels’ Melbourne show came to a sweaty, sweltering end.
– Ella Jackson
