Black Angels w/ The Allah-Las + Elephant Stone – Fine Line, Minneapolis (04/20/13) live review
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Tour Dates
04/26/13 Austin, TX Carson Creek Ranch
04/27/13 Austin, TX Carson Creek Ranch 04/28/13 Austin, TX Carson Creek Ranch 05/01/13 New Orleans, LA Republic 05/02/13 Baton Rouge, LA Spanish Moon 05/03/13 Birmingham, AL WorkPlay Theatre 05/04/13 Atlanta, GA Masquerade Music 05/05/13 Nashville, TN The Mercy Lounge 05/07/13 Indianapolis, IN The Vogue 05/08/13 St. Louis, MO Firebird 05/10/13 Boulder, CO Boulder Theater 05/11/13 Salt Lake City, UT The Depot 05/13/13 Seattle, WA The Neptune 05/14/13 Vancouver, BC Commodore 05/15/13 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom 05/17/13 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore 05/18/13 Pomona, CA Glass House 05/19/13 Solana Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern 05/21/13 Los Angeles, CA Mayan Theatre 05/22/13 Tucson, AZ Club Congress 05/24/13 Houston, TX Fitzgerald’s 05/25/13 Dallas, TX Granada Theater 05/26/13 San Antonio, TX White Rabbit 06/13/13 Brisbane, Australia The Tivoli 06/14/13 Melbourne, Australia Palace Theatre 06/15/13 Newtown, Australia Enmore Theatre 06/17/13 Perth, Australia Capitol 07/04/13 Werchter, Belgium Festivalpark
The Black Angels just released an emotion “Don’t Play With Guns” on their official website, in response to the mass school shooting.
Singer Alex Maas issued this statement with the song, “Our music has always tried to s…… |
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ELEPHANT STONE
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Montreal’s Elephant Stone opened the show, armed with swirling projected images and frontman Rishi Dhir’s sitar to get the evening started on a tranced Indian-tinged beginning. Dhir would later return to join the Black Angels toward the end of their set, but won over several in the crowd with his spirited solos and weaving late 60’s era Beatles/Kinks sounds with a modern edge. Playing cuts from their two full-lengths, The Seven Seas (2009) and Elephant Stone (2013), the self-described ‘Hindie Rock’ band from Canada dazzled through ‘Looking Through Baby Blue’; ‘Setting Sun’; ‘Don’t You Know’; ‘Heavy Moon’ and ‘Masters of War’, ending with the sitar-driven ‘A Silent Moment’.
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THE ALLAH-LAS
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Los Angeles-based The Allah-Las followed (maybe not the best name choice given current global tensions) with a jangly garage rock set capturing a peaceful, easy California-like feeling while sounding heavily like Abkco-era Rolling Stones, Zombies and Animals on tracks like ‘Catamaran’ and ‘Don’t You Forget It’ from last year’s self-titled debut album. Singer Miles Michaud looks somewhat like a 70’s Dylan, but their sound is from the decade before, and Amos Lee-lookalike drummer Matt Correia even stepped out for lead on the last song, maracas in hand.
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BLACK ANGELS
Record Store Day at Electric Fetus |
Despite their busy day, the Black Angels kept things on-time and entered as a hypnotic, kaleidoscopic mélange of pixels and patterns projected on their large backdrop and four on-stage panels. Earlier, they had started their morning on-air session on local public radio almost a half hour early and also played an (on-time) 35 min. Record Store Day set at the Electric Fetus, with people jammed down every aisle to catch a glimpse.
Beginning their 90 min set with ‘Vikings/I Hear Colors (Chromaesthesia)’; somewhat inexplicably their third song was ‘Don’t Play with Guns’, which is currently receiving heavy local radio rotation. Shortly after which, a handful of people were out the doors-their mistake, as it had just started to get good.
Reverb, drone, and singer Alex Maas sounding like he was singing down an endless hallway were all present in a neo-psychedelic sound that obviously draws from the past, but is updated into something after five albums, that The Black Angels can truly call their own. Their music resembles a good stout on tap – heavy-bodied, layered, thick, and yes, a little hazy, and the crowd was loving it, some aided by their own 4/20 stimulants.
‘Indigo Meadow’, the title track that intros the new album was under layered with a floating keyboard riff, then the intensity and volume turned back up for newer songs like ‘Twisted Light’ and ‘The Day’. Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir joined the band at encore for a rousing finish- distortion, fuzz, guitars, and sitar blazing in a wall of sound on the last song of the evening, ‘True Believers’ that begged the question to perhaps add sitars permanently to the Black Angels sound.
This was an Austin, TX band of few words, as they didn’t say much between songs, but instead chose to turn up to eleven, add vertigo-inducing graphics, and let the experience of the performance do the talking…and not just because it was 4/20.
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Black Angels at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (04/20/13) |