Following an enthusiastically deadpan set from The Laurels, the good officers of City of Sydney brought a rather friendly black tail-wagger inside The Metro to check out all the sights and smells: spilt beer, fake smoke, stale sweat. Although the sight of four policepersons stalking their way through a sea of black t-shirts could never be anything but a welcome one, as an exercise in protecting gig-goers from themselves it seemed to be remarkable ineffective – at least judging from the aromas that began to circulate as soon as the houselights went down… Maybe they were just taking shelter from the drab evening outside.
Former Brian Jonestown Massacre tambourine man Joel Gion provided the soundtrack for an enjoyable interlude of standing-around-and-waiting-for-them-to-get-on-with-it, spinning a bit of ‘60s girl-pop, a little spaghetti western, and generally mixing it up. Considering the raffish charm with which he leads his own group The Dilettantes, it was somewhat disappointing that crowd interaction stayed off the menu for this stint of DJing, Gion limiting himself to mincing gormlessly between the turntable and his box of records, with the occasional pout at the offstage sound engineer. We didn’t think it was loud enough, either.
Neither, for that matter, were The Black Angels. Although they routinely get lumped in with groups such as Wooden Shjips, Dead Meadow or The Warlocks, the Austin quintet’s take on nu-psychedelia relies almost completely on throwing down layer after layer of menacing, scuzz-riven drones, chasing a relentless purity all their own. What was lacking in volume tonight was made up for by the group’s sheer inexorability, a needless cameo from Gion the only thing interrupting an otherwise mesmerising endurance test. Though hardly made for dancing, rhythmic torso gyrations were enjoyed by many, emerging from the darkness energised, sweat-drenched and grinning.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 420, July 11th 2011
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