Last year, John Garcia, frontman of the desert rock gods Kyuss, decided to revisit the band that he was most known for and went on a small European tour with a bunch of musicians from around that area, under the bill Garcia Plays Kyuss. Funnily enough, the sets consisted entirely of material from the amazing yet oh-so-brief discography of that band. There were some interested murmurs when the lineups were announced of certain festivals that noted that while Garcia was in town, so too would be his former bandmates Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork, playing with other bands of theirs. The dream jam did indeed eventuate, with Oliveri and Bjork first joining Garcia onstage at Hellfest in France, an event that was repeated numerous times throughout the course of the tour. The seeds were sown, and in November 2010, there came the official announcement that this lineup of the band were reuniting for a full world tour. Everyone understandably weighed in with their two cents about the absence of founding axeman Josh Homme, and it was due to his absence that the tour has gone ahead under the banner of Kyuss Lives! His replacement has been the very capable Bruno Fevery, of Belgian band Arsenal and who also played on the GPK shows. With or without Homme, the tour has been a massive success, selling out just about every show and earning rave reviews across the board. I'd be lying if I said the news that Kyuss Lives were coming to Australia didn't excite me in the pants region, and on a pretty wet Sunday evening, Garcia, Oliveri, Bjork and Fevery tore Melbourne a new one with a fantastic set, spanning the best part of the Kyuss career. Byron Bay's Fort had the honours of opening the show, and put on a pretty capable set with a sound that was quite an appropriate match to the headliners. However, everyone was just waiting for the main event!
10:30 rolled around, the lights went down and a typical symphonic introduction blared over the PA. The tension in the crowd was absolutely electric, and when the silhouettes of the band made their way to their instruments, the crowd roared appreciatively. Brant Bjork raised his hands and with that immense pounding rhythm, the crowd was in the band's pocket as they recognised the familiar intro of Spaceship Landing. The sceptics among us would like to ask questions such as, "Well, why are they really doing this? Why not Josh? Isn't this all just a big cash-in/nostalgia trip?" Well, undoubtedly they are going to earn quite a bit of money from this, but from the way they were playing onstage, it was obvious that a far more important motive for doing this tour is because they're having a good fucking time. There were smiles all around onstage, and plenty of enthusiasm evident in the way they were playing and roaming around the stage. As for the setlist, there was a great mix of tunes from all of their studio albums except for debut Wretch, and they even threw in a few relative rarities, Fatso Forgotso and Un Sandpiper, in the middle of the set. But for pretty much the entire set, the crowd was in awe of this classic material getting an airing in this country for the first time in about 18 years (Kyuss last toured Australia in 1993, as support for Metallica incidentally). Garcia even mentioned that at one point, stating, "It's nice to be back," before correcting himself. "No, it's not nice to be back, it's fucking GREAT to be back!" he exclaimed, to suitable crowd approval. Homme or no Homme, the band sounded absolutely amazing, with just the right level of each instrument present in the mix - it was understandably quite loud, but not unbearably so, and the trademark rumble and groove of the low-end based riffs was maintained with surprising clarity. The band made up for lost time with an impressive 19-song setlist, including TWO encores, and just about everything you'd want to hear from them - Whitewater, Hurricane, Gardenia, they were all in there! What was also great is the jamming nature of the band doesn't seem to have died, as they faithfully replicated some of the more long-winded passages in some songs. Fevery seems to be fitting into the band very well too, replicating the old Homme solos faithfully but with just enough of his own take on things thrown into the mix. The crowd's enthusiasm never died, as they sung along to every word and of course, smoked a few cheeky jazz cigarettes. One even made its way onto the stage, where it was picked up and enjoyed by Garcia! After a blistering rendition of 100°, the band finally made their way offstage. The three instrumentalists returned first for a blistering rendition of instrumental favourite Molten Universe, before Garcia returned to finish off the encore with the extremely awesome 50 Million Year Trip and Allen's Wrench. But there was one more track missing, and they returned for one final time to blast out Green Machine. Garcia was far from the only one bellowing out "I've got a war inside my head!" as the sold-out Palace crowd joined in for one last singalong, before it was finally over and the long-haired and bearded masses spilled out onto Bourke St, absolutely in rapture at witnessing this momentous occasion. One can only hope this isn't the last we see of them.
SETLIST:
Spaceship Landing
Gardenia
Hurricane
One Inch Man
Thumb
Conan Troutman
Freedom Run
Asteroid
Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop
Fatso Forgotso
Un Sandpiper
Odyssey
Whitewater
El Rodeo
1oo°
----Encore 1----
Molten Universe
50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)
Allen's Wrench
----Encore 2(!)----
Green Machine
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment