The
stoner metal juggernaut that is Sleep landed in Pittsburgh this past
Saturday. They are on the shortlist of bands that I keep in my head
that I will see whenever or wherever I can.
I had
been equally anticipating and dreading this show ever since it was
announced. When tickets went on sale, I ponied up my $25.00 that was
then followed by $15.00 of TicketBastard fees for some reason. Not
off to a great start but it was Sleep so I'll show up.
The
band was playing at the dreaded Stage AE which is a venue that I have
never had a pleasant experience with. It's an overly sanitary venue
that wants to be involved with music while at the same time not
wanting to really get any music on itself. Almost as if someone had
a bunch of extra Coors Light laying around and didn't know what else
to do with it other than charge $12 a cup for it while a band was
playing.
The
other issue I have with the venue is its use of the same aggressive
security staff that is used at Heinz Field for Steeler games. This
staff is conditioned for belligerent drunks that will choke a
pregnant lady or head-butt someone if a rapist throws a ball to
person wearing a different colored shirt or the debauchery of a Kenny
Chesney concert. They don't know how to handle a bunch of weirdos
that want to hear weird music.
Things
were immediately looking up when I got to the venue. I found a
parking space around the corner and ended up saving myself the $12.00
parking fee. They changed up the security upon entering from a pat
down that was equal to a cancer screening to a walk through metal
detector and a wand. I don't know why I would need wanded after a
walk through but at least I was spared the cavity search.
As soon
as I made it through security, I made a beeline for the merch table
to obtain the tour pressing of The Sciences which was pressed
on black vinyl with white and purple splatter. I also picked up a
poster to give to the proprietors of my favorite heavy metal themed,
plant based eatery, Onion Maiden. Luckily, I was one of the first
people at the merch table because there was an incredibly long line
that lasted a good chunk of the night.
Weather
Warlock opened the proceedings and was interesting on many different
levels. Weather Warlock is not a band. It's a guy with
meteorological equipment set up outside that can read temperature,
wind speed and infrared rays. Instead of having this information
presented as a read out of some sort, Weather Warlock is set up so
the weather outside generates sounds that can be manipulated.
It was
quite the experience but not for the casual music fan and especially
not for the couple standing next to me that I could best describe as
walking Youtube comments. These two couldn't shut up for five
seconds to let themselves experience the weirdness that was happening
in front of them. They both knew everything and everything sucked. It was, “This movie sucks, that TV show sucks. What is this guy
doing with the nobs and dials to make that sound? Why would he do
that? He sucks,” for the entirety of the set.
During
the change over from Weather Warlock to Sleep, I noticed that the
tech/crew guys were wearing blue coveralls with patches on them, much
like the astronauts at NASA wear. Then I saw that the sound and
lighting engineers were wearing black pants with short sleeve, button
down white shirts and black ties. They looked very much like they
could have been working at Ground Control, in Houston. That's when
the audio from the Apollo 11 Moon landing started playing over the
PA. This nerd suddenly felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Or maybe
that was the contact high from the cloud of marijuana smoke that had
settled in over the crowd.
Since I
missed out on my usual spot near the soundboard due to the wait at
the merch table, I ended up standing on the Matt Pike side of the
stage where there were half a dozen, full-size Orange amps waiting to
attack our hearing. On the other side of the stage there were five
bass amps waiting for Al Cisneros to try to collapse the building
with his low end rumble.
Sleep
took the stage at 9:30 and opened with “Leagues Beneath” which
was their most recent release as a twelve inch single. The
“everything sucks” couple apparently couldn't handle it and
quickly retreated into their phones, barely looking up from them for
the rest of the night. At least they were quiet from there on out.
“Leagues
Beneath” was followed by a shortened twenty minute version of
Sleep's epic “Dopesmoker.” As many times as I have listened to
the entire sixty minutes of it, “Dopesmoker” live is as good as
music gets.
They
followed that up with “Holy Mountain” which the band dedicated to
the Tree Of Life synagogue. At this point, the band didn't sound as
tight and I could hear them missing cues and their timing was a bit
off.
There
apparently were technical issues of some sort. Both Al and Matt were
looking over to the monitor board because they couldn't hear. Then
one of the techs were running around the drum kit chasing a cable. After taking a harder listen, I could tell the bass drum was lost
from the mix. A new cable was placed on the mic for the kick but it
was still missing. I'm guessing the mic gave out after a few nights
of being pummeled by Jason Roeder. Mics were swapped out and not
only could I hear the kick drum, I could feel it in my chest.
By the
end of “Holy Mountain” and into “The Clarity,” Sleep had
locked in and let rip with “Marijuanaut's Theme.” The band came
alive, shook off the earlier issues and let it rip. I had never
heard the band sound like they were having as much fun and as into
playing as they were when they were attacking this song.
The
instrumental “The Botanist” followed to mellow things out for
what was going to be the end with “Dragonaut.” By the end of the
song, they had played each other off stage until it was only Al
Cisneros closing the show out with a bass solo.
If most
bands only played seven songs and called it a night, I would call
bullshit. But Sleep isn't most bands. Seven of their songs over an
hour and a half is a full meal, no encore needed. By the time Al
walked off stage, I was stuffed, content and utterly amazed that I
finally had a good night at Stage AE.
No comments:
Post a Comment