Concert review of the Vera-gig / 2000-04-20 taken from the
Dutch e-zine
THE KIND OF MUZIK YOU LIKE!, 2000-04-27.
English. Found at the TKMYL!-site and sent in by Bas.

There's only a couple of bands on this green earth that can get me like this. Motorpsycho is one of them. This threesome from Trondheim, Norway have become notorious for their lengthy concerts (at least 2 and a half hours each and every time), the stretched out versions of their repertoire and the fierce consistency of their performances. I'll say it like it is, there's no band like them out there right now. Not by a long shot. Not this side of Pluto. But it's not something for everybody I must add, some might find their concerts a tad tedious, Jerry Garcia and the MC5 revisited. To some extent I can understand their grievances, as Motorpsycho is an experience you must surrender to fully in order to be able to appreciate it. Once it sucks you in though, it's devastating. Cathartic, like being cleaned out, rebooted and refreshed in one session.

On this current tour the band is being accompanied onstage by a fourth member on organ, keyboard and mellotron, which adds a whole new dimension to the act. The old songs sound fuller, have new spark, while the new songs off the album Let Them Eat Cake jingle and jangle even more than on the actual recording. You don't miss the brass nor the strings at all, which is quite a feat since the entire album is so utterly orchestral. The live renditions of "The Other Fool", "Walking With J" and "Upstairs, Downstairs" are masterclasses in problemsolving arrangements. The more "typical" Motorpsycho material hasn't lost its charm either; "Walking On The Water", "Vortex Surfer" and especially "Taifun" and the MC5-cover "Black To Comm" were, as always, fucking mesmerizing.

This band is in so many ways unparalelled, the whole thing lasted no less than 2 and a half hours and I never wanted it to end. In the hours, days after the show everything else didn't quite have that patina (which I regret for all of those bands at the London Calling-festival in A'dam later that weekend, with the clear exception of Beulah).

All you folks out there in the U.S., the U.K., all over the world, if you have no fear, if you want music to transform you, to take you somewhere and to leave you speechless; I don't care who you are, where you've been, whom you've seen or what you know. You have yet to witness the liberating force and undeniable glory of Rock And Roll if you don't know Motorpsycho. Go get a record -any record!-, go see that show. Leave your wallet, your watch, your keys and everything else that makes you afraid to step out of bed sometimes on the dresser. Get with it. Become a Psychonaut.

Ariën