Black Rebel Motorcycle Club w/ Night Beats at First Avenue, Minneapolis (11 Feb 2018)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Setlist

Tour Dates

For something called Wrong, everything on this night seemed so very right—

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club returned to the concert stage on their Wrong Tour at a crowded First Avenue Mainroom, for a performance that again answered their own music question, ‘Whatever Happened to my Rock ‘n Roll?’

The evening got started at a volume level of eleven as Dallas psych-rock trio Night Beats roared out with an impressive forty-five minute support set that left ears ringing and mouths agape.  The group’s (Danny “Lee Blackwell” Billingsley- vocals/guitar; Jonah Swilley– drums; Jakob Bowden – bass) latest full length is 2016’s timely-named Who Sold My Generation (Heavenly Recordiings) and helps make the strong case for Texas remaining the psych-rock capital, channeling forefathers of the genre like 13^th Floor Elevators and The Red Krayola, while putting a twist on things to call their sound all their own.

Amongst dim lighting and full of echo, reverb, and delay, the trio even put Bo Diddley’s ‘Mama, Keep Your Big Mouth Shut’  from 1964 through their psych-rock transformation machine, keeping its rolling bassline intact, but amp-ing up the guitar sound and with the vocals sung in a trippy, transcending way. 

Songs like ‘H-Bomb’ and ‘No Cops’ gut-punched with such fire and fury that many in the crowd were visibly surprised with such brash fierceness from a support act, but also likely left as newfound fans. 

While you were already in peril if you forgot ear plugs after the opener, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club might have made you wish you brought sunglasses, as their light show went from low level blues, pale reds and purples, to all-out strobe lights, set along a stage landscape of rolling dry ice fog. 

The Bay Area trio (Peter Hayes- vocal, guitar, harmonica; Robert Levon Been- vocal, bass, guitar; Leah Shapiro- drums) has been perfecting this presentation and their accompanying music since the late ‘90s with eighth studio album, Wrong Creatures (Vagrant Records) out just last month.

The two-hour headlining set began with the new ‘Spook’ and never really let up, the alt-garage noise rockers taking the crowd on a musical journey through their twenty years of existence.

Showcasing the new tracks continued with the literally breathless ‘Little Thing Gone Wild’ (Been noticeably exhaling at song’s end) and ‘King of Bones’ before the swamp blues of ‘Beat the Devil’s Tattoo’ and ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’ both stomped in, with Hayes strumming guitar and blowing harp concurrently. 

The brooding new ‘Question of Faith’ purposely wanders about, asking “What leads you in the nights, just a question of right” while ‘Circus Bazooko’ adds some trippy whimsy with its calliope-esque organ anchoring the song.

Been took time mid-set for a brief two-song solo acoustic break, saying their new record was recorded at California’s Sunset Sound, the same location Purple Rain was mixed, before cueing his keyboard up for a stripped ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, “God bless Minneapolis” he said, finishing the song.  After an odd shout-out to the small town of New York Mills, MN a stripped down version of BRMC’s 2005 song, ‘Fault Line’ sounded as bare and poignant as Rick Rubin-produced Johnny Cash.   

The band re-emerged for the bluesy ‘Shuffle Your Feet’, getting things really going with 2001’s ‘Love Burns’, then slowed things down for the piano-driven ‘All Rise’ before ending the main set again back to a cut from their debut album, with ‘Spread Your Love’. 

The longest song on the new record, ‘Ninth Configuration’ began their two-song encore, a dreamy journey that muses philosophically aloud, before feedback  introduced the band’s biggest hit, ‘Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘n’ Roll (Punk Song)’, ending things as crowd members jumped about with arms raised in the air. 

Out of the darkness and fog, there is still light… and noise, as again evidenced by the sonic barrage that is still Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, continuing to bring their unapologetic blend of no-holds rock to audiences everywhere after two decades.