A Night At The Opera
Rockefeller, 10. april 1999

Motorpsycho never ceases to impress me. The opening 30 minutes showed that, despite rarely being
better than average on their last tour, they still know how to combine extreme beauty with electric
guitars. This half hour was nothing less than marvellous.
  I'm talking about K9, of course, After the very quiet opening, the first notes of Un Chien received
a roaring welcome. In a concert review written about a Rockefeller show two years ago, I expressed the
opinion that this song could be a highlight for years and years, and the song is definitely fulfilling
its potential. It is one of the classic Motorpsycho-songs, and also one of their songs most obviously 
inspired by classical music. Anybody who's ever had a sister taking piano lessons will recognize the  
opening eight notes - it's Fur Elise, isn't it? 
  When the song really got going, all hell broke loose. The space trip was accompanied by some
incredible lighting - it was an achievement of Wagnerian proportions. Pure Gotterdammerung!   
  Even the Rockefeller audience seemed to notice this, as no sounds were heard (from the crowd) during
the whispering guitar outtro.

  Oh, they did play som new ones and some old ones as well. Who cares? They could have left the stage,
and it would still have been a great show. In fact, they should have left the stage after K9 - it     
would have been the greatest show ever.

E

--

Bicycling
When my girlfriend and me arrived at Rockefeller it was still early and we
had gone through the usual pre-concert ritual at home (rice & eggs, loud  
music and a cup of tea), and our expectations were high up there. Outside 
people were selling & buying tickets for 500 NOK (over 3 times higher than
the usual price) and that gives you a hint of their popularity at the     
moment. Before the show they played some strange music (some of it rather 
cool) and as usual it was interesting to see all the different types of   
people turning up for mp gigs (especially all the weirdoes - myself       
included).
          
Then they went on stage to great applaud and started to play some slow
jazz/blues/ambient thing with bent on guitar and snah with his keyboard
(something that looks like it at least) & geb drumming nice and soft. Don't
know if it was a song or just a jam thing but it worked ok as an intro.    

The real fun didn't start before the next tune which was AK9 !! The first
part was great and rocking and then they went into some noise frenzy with
Geb drumming like an angel of death or something. Great, great part and I
haden't heard it before. They continued a bit more relaxed but still in  
space before returning back to UN CHIEN (and oh, how wonderfull it is when
the distorted guitar starts after the verse) and the crowd was beginning to
move.
     
Next up were a new one, HEARTBREAKER, a *very* poppy (in a seventies way)
song that I liked a lot. Bent used a very light voice (like some         
power-pop/indie bands) and the chorus was real catchy.                   

SUPERWHEEL - Snah singing better than ever. I've never liked this song much
but this is probably the best version I've heard (maybe except the one on  
roadwork). But the real treat was of course THE WHEEL (from what I heard I 
wasn't the only one who thought this) which was great and Bent was screamin
and screamin and the big screen behind them showing the weirdest things.   

2 NEW ONES ("We think those are the most fun to play") - I can't remember
much about them except that they both seemed OK and on one of them Bent and
Snah shared the vocal duties. One was pretty hard the other more poppy.   

YOU LIED - As a lot of people has pointed out I can't really see why they
still play this (it's a good song but mp do have a lot of better songs not
being played) , except that it really gets the crowd going.               
Still, it sounded great this saturday....

BLACK TO CLOMM (W/ BACK TO SOURCE) - A good song, an even better version of
the song.....
             
then some riff starts that I know I've heard before......it evolves and it's
this great riff.....what is this ?.....bent starts singing and it's FADE TO 
GREY, a version far superior to my old concert version. This will surely be 
a new mp classic. I used to think this song had potential but now I can     
truly stay it's great ! One of highlights....

(short break before they went back up)

THE WITCH ("this is an old German song") - It seemed OK - nothing more or
less. Haven't heard the original and can't say I remember anything from this
performance of it.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' - an old familiar riff started and *boom* it's
california dreamin'. Good vibrations all over the crowd (at least where I
stood) - people dancing and everybody seemed like having a good time. Can't
understand how anyone want this off the setlist : It was clearly a highlight
(and besides it's rather short) and it surprised me (& the rest of the crowd
it seemed) in a very positive way. I must admit that I haven't seen this    
played live before so that probably made it a bit greater.                  

Then they went off stage again to walls of applause. Some people seemed to
think it was over , but most of us just stood there waiting for the VORTEX
to reveal itself. And it did....and it was a great version (with Snah even
doing to mellow solo right....) and the only proper way to end the gig.   

----------------
To sum things up: A great concert. Maybe the best one I've seen (6 is my
total).....perhaps even better than the rockefeller gig in the autumn of 97'
(first time I heard Vortex).

----------------
Some of the songs might be in a slightly different order....

About the new ones: shorter.....more poppier......starting easy before
turning on the fuzz.........quite catchy - so now I'm only            
waiting...........(for a miracle ??)

About the setlist:
In my opinion it was cool to play a lot of new songs. Also the California D.
cover was GREAT but maybe they do play a bit too much covers.......they     
could maybe play a bit shorter cover songs at least....both Black to Clomm  
and the Witch were quite long, and both could have been left out to make way
for older songs (not the ones they've played so much and gotten bored of but
the ones they haven't played much like: Stalemate, Babylon, Baby Jesus II,  
Rad. Freq. , Kill Some Day, Sinfull Windborne etc). And Watersound should be
the opening song........
In my opinion they could easily stop playing You Lied, Superstooge (and keep
the Wheel....) and maybe black to clomm and the witch. 
And yeah.....I missed Dr. Hoffmann.


If anybody recorded this gig I would very grateful for a copy (have lots to
trade)
      
Martin.
(on his bicycle)

--
This is a german song
Well...the band went on stage a few minutes before eleven. They started
with a really long intro that went into Un Chien or K9 or whatever you 
want to call it. During this intro people were talking way too much.   
Some idiots behind me were worst, but I told them to shut up and       
surprisingly they did. Un Chien was great as always. It included a lot 
of parts that were different from the ones at Roadwork. The next song  
they played was a new one called Heartbreaker. Kind of hard to explain      
what the new songs sound like after just one listen, but all of them had
a chorus with nice vocal harmonies were Snah or Bent sang 2nd voice.    
Another new one, Hi Time was played. It sounded ok, but nothing special.
And then we heard the Superstooge intro and Superstooge went into The   
Wheel. The part were Superstooge beomes The Wheel was pretty different  
from the one on Roadwork. I prefer the one on Roadwork. Another new song
was played after Superwheel, Big Sutp ( That's what my setlist says     
anyway). I don't remember that much from this song. The next song, Fade 
to Grey was in my opinion one of the highpoints together with K9 and    
Superwheel or maybe I was just glad to hear a song that I had heard     
before. I have Fade to grey on a liverecording, but this sounded so much
better. It's definitely another nice Motorpsycho poptune. I have never  
liked You Lied, which was the next song that they played, but last night    
it was great. Really long drum solo by Geb and Snah started doing       
something on his guitar while Bent was just watching the two of them.   
Black to comm was ok. Nothing special about it. Before the next song        
Bent said;"This is a german song". The setlist says Glow and it's       
probably a cover. Then they went off-stage, came back. Here Pidah's     
setlist says Other II, but Other Other Fool wasn't played, so I guess
they went straigth to Ze Witz wich is the next song on the setlist. A
new one, a cover? California Dreamin' was pretty cool to hear live, but     
I didn't hear much of the vocals so when the band went off and came back    
to play Vortex Surfer I moved further back in search of better sound.       
Vortex Surfer was good as always, but I've heard it played better. The  
gig ended around 1 o'clock.All in all a good gig, but I'm still a little    
dissapointed. Maybe my expectations were too high? I don't know, but        
when they have so many fantastic songs
they can play and they play 5 new ones and 3 coversongs I must say that
the gig could have been so much better. I know they that they enjoy to 
play the new songs, but still......Only half of the set consisted of  
released songs. The concert was filmed. And Erik; it was prabobly me you
say drumming on my knee at John Dee after the gig.

haakon