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Couchtouring with Motorpsycho on a Friday evening was such a treat. Stream lacked series bottom end. Snah in a trucker cap was appropriately dressed for the occasion and the band wiped the floor with your average stoner bands. First time as power trio with Olaf and it was not too bad! In fact this was a great gig. Highlights: “Supastuka” and “Mountain” which both slayed. Perfect festival gig on a perfect summer night.
My favourite MP period is “Trust us/RW1”. In the year between these two albums I grew from a casual fan into a full-on psychonaut, traveling to an out-of-town show (at Beatpol Dresden) for the very first time in spring 1999, shortly after the release of RW1.
Today, 29 years after I had first discovered MP, I rarely listen to their studio albums, maybe 3-4 times a year plus new stuff upon release. When I do play an album from the back catalogue I always choose
“LTEC” followed by “Phanerothyme”. Which is weird because at the time the pop period seemed like a deviation from the heavy rock path, a commercial detour. Maybe that is more true for the latter than for the former, because the class of LTEC became apparent very soon after its release.I am not sure why I prefer to listen to these albums, maybe I have grown older and mellower or maybe, I like to think, they are indeed timeless works of high quality, maybe more timeless than, let’s say, AADAP. These albums still sound fresh every time, they are even growing on me 25 years after their release.
For this reason I am with you in considering them among the best works in the band’s legacy.
From the band’s social media post:
“Dresden! That was The Bomb.
Thank you so much, we needed that! Nights like this are the reason we’re still out here doing this: All the toil is justified when the all becomes one and the music becomes a singular, magic entity like it did tonight. It is vital to sometimes be reminded of why you do what you do, and nights like this is why we’re still out here doing it. We first played this club 32 years ago, and it still is one of the best places we know. Thank you for this gift!”After the penultimate gig of this run in Dresden the previous night, which the band celebrated with an exceptionally emotional social media post as “the bomb” and a “gift”, they wrap up the tour with the only three hour show of this tour at Bremen’s Schlachthof, one of their old haunts.
They take the stage visibly reinvigorated, particularly Bent is very animated and into it. The gig opens with a free form jam which the setlist calls “Gong” because Olaf employs the giant instrument behind him. At the end of night they would reprise this jam-with-a-gong during the last fading moments of “Fool’s Gold”, neatly framing tonight’s motopsychdelic journey.
Once the concert gets properly underway it doesn’t take long for the psychonaut typing this to notice that the band is much more together than in the beginning of the tour. Everything gels, they are tighter, Olaf’s sound is fatter, they nail every tune.
This is a well rounded and well balanced set giving us psychedelic rock and tender acoustic music followed by even deeper space rock before the songy and heavy songs, grouped together and only seperated by the breather “Patterns”, bring the house down thus appropriately closing the main set.
The big news is of course the tour debut of “Superstooge”. It’s an insanely energetic version, they simply slay it, a noisy and piercing deconstruction for two guitars, by miles the most jawdropping moment of the night. Other highlights included a relaxed and patient “Song for a bro” with a crystalline solo towards the end, a perfect reading of “Lucifer” and 14 groovy minutes of “Lacuna” (totally different from the dark exploration of the Hamburg version three weeks earlier). “Kill Some Day” is a powerful version (not considering the final vocals though), “Sinful Windborne” grooves and “Hyena” makes a big showy appearance with its irresistibly catchy chorus. “Neotzar”, the third Tzar of the night, a giant rugged chunk of unadulterated motorpsychodelia, appears as first encore while “Fool”s Gold” is a rare second encore, preceded by a little thank-you-speech by Bent and a long and tight hug between Bent and Reine.
What a fun tour finale: Long, engaging and satisfying, performed by a band who has worked hard night after night to make it work and who succeeded to deliver the magic we all crave. Thank you, Motorpsycho!
Wow, that’s a setlist. Great build up, particularly the first half until the acoustic portion looks great…
Hamburg, what an energy! The band delivers an exhilarating show propelled by a energectic Saturday-night crowd who cheers after solos already in the third song, claps and is at the band’s feet. The setlist is much more to my liking and most who attended the previous night in Berlin and this show agreed that it compared like day and night. Tonight was more like it!!!
The sound is fat and crunchy, the rock numbers are dirty and ferocious, the psych numbers are jammy and far out, the setlist flow is magic. Highlights include a gnarly “Comeback”, a “Lucifer” that really gels, a white-hot version of “Balthazaar”, deep psych in “Manmower” and “Lacuna”, the driving and powerful “3FM” and the heavy motorpsychodelic onslaught of “Alchemyst”. Another epic reading of “Neotzar” closes a 2h50m gig that leaves everybody stunned.
This night proves that the old wisdoms still hold true: Once MP are on tour magic can and will happen, their form increases, setlists develop, new numbers are being added as the tour progresses which is typically the case when they venture further into the continent. I got the feeling that the tour started in earnest tonight and the door is now open to many more thrilling shows!
For most of the near capacity crowd this was a fun show but I’ll have to admit it was not my type of MP set. In fact this might have been my least favourite show by our Norwegian heroes by a mile.
I feel almost bad and guilty saying this considering how well played this concert was: The sound was powerful, they were tight, Bent just about managed to avoid the most cringy vocal missteps, an honest devotion to the material was on display and the setlist mostly worked well. Olaf is competent and tight enough to hold it together but he is not a magician of fills, runs and dynamics the way Tomas and Kenneth were. Also, I simply cannot warm to his drum sound which sounds like a tin can, with the hi hats all washing together, a hissy mess to my ears. The first part of “Pacific Sonata” (Bent: “This is a song about a palace which broke down.”) was about the only moment when Olaf’s deep rumbling kick drums really added to the sound and touched me.
My biggest problem is the material they choose to play. I don’t think much of their material of the last 10 years is particularly strong and original within their own body of work. I’ll have to go back eight years to “The Tower” to single out the last truly significant studio album. A friend nailed it when he texted me his immideate reaction after a show of this tour: “Too many similiar songs played similarly.” Indeed, at this show in Berlin, there were no jams, they did not venture into uncharted territory for one single moment! The closest we came to stepping through the portal was during “Neotzar”, one of my highlights of this gig along with “3FM”, “Captain”, “Lady May” and “Balthazaar”.
This was mostly a Rock ‘n’ Pop show, i.e. almost zero psychedelic, which is just one side of MP. Me, myself, I feel a bit removed from the youthful energy of the 1990s and maybe I am revealing more about myself here when I can’t help to think that they are not playing tho their strengths when they are devoting entire concerts to the type of energy on display on “Stanley”, “CMC” and “The Nerve Tattoo” et al. That said, the crowd loved it and the last third of the main set after “Spreesonate” went through the roof, raising the energy level song by song until the entire room erupted in blissful applause for the encore break.
I am curious how this tour will develop, though I get the feeling they will mostly stick to this material. I hope to hear “Patterns” and “Sentinels” in Hamburg tonight and will be eager to learn what type of band I will see for the tour closer in Bremen.
See you out there!
Yes, European leg of tour starts tonight in Stockholm !!! Francesco, you there? See you in Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen…
How long were “Balthazaar”, “Lucifer”, “Dream Home”, “GtC” and “Mountain” approxmimately? Any significant jams, new territory charted?
Olaf Olsen on drums. Has previously drummed with MP during the Norwegian tour 2023. Previously drummer in Big Bang, his main gig is Needlepoint.
