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Tonight!!!
Something tells me this is going to be experimental as fuck! But hey, they might just play some of the stuff they recorded this summer!
Here's hoping for reports/reviews/setlists from you lucky attendees
According to the same tweeter @mindtleftbody:
"30/30!!!!"
If that's the case, that's the live-debut of the LTEC-closer
Wow. I'm back home after this experience. Because this wasn't just a concert. It was an experience. The sound was amazing, the lighting show was even more amazing, and the music was truly spectacular. And almost eerily appropriate in a giant, majestic church. I'll try to describe the event with words. I might fail, but I'll try.
I sat behind the soundboard, to the right. I couldn't see very much, but MP had their equipment set up up on the balcony next to the insanely huge organ. After some initial announcements, Bent & Snah came quietly on stage. I quickly saw that Snah strapped on a double neck guitar. Wow, that's new! And what does it mean? Soon thereafter, a quiet soundscape began, the volume slowly rising, drums coming from *behind* us (and the drum set next to the organ showed no signs of movement). The lights were flashing, and it didn't take long before I was imagining being on a large, dark field, engulfed in a gigantic thunder storm. That's the kind of mood this this music (and lighting) conveyed to me. Thunder, lightning, darkness, brutal, beautiful. After a while a riff emerged, with a slightly strange rhythm, and then suddenly Рan organ solo based on the same riff! Bent and Snah sat down during this. A couple of minutes later Kenneth emerged on the balcony. He started playing a seemingly simple pattern, while St̴le went into what I'd describe as the sound of easy, gentle, Jethro Tull-ish meadows. Beautiful. Snah came back in, with what I believe was an e-bow (electric "violin bow" for guitar) and started putting layers on top of this. It was almost impossible to notice, but very gradually Kenneth's beat got more and more complex, and eventually Bent joined in again, with his quite distinct "tractor bass" sound, but it was a pretty gentle tractor bass, if one can say that. And then we're suddenly in prog rock heaven for a little while, before it's all taken down to gentle meadows again. And then, the first vocals of the night. Bent singing very very gently. Very beautiful. More prog rock emerged. More organ. A long slow build-up, still with themes already presented.
One thing which struck me this evening: It was mostly like a really long piece of music, with themes and melodies weaving in and out of each other, intertwining, being presented, being followed, built upon, then seemingly forgotten and revisited again later. Masterfully done.
So now, about 40 minutes in, we're building up to something grand. It's just the same long riff, over and over, but with Motorpsycho's amazing ability to end a riff where it starts, it never gets boring.
And bang. Almost silence. Bent and Snah sit down, while Kenneth starts a drum solo. Over the next minutes he builds it like a mason would build a brick wall, but suddenly he is ten masons, building the same wall. If I hadn't witnessed it myself, I would have problems believing that one man is playing all this. He's got to be an octopus. As a non-drummer, I have trouble believing that one man can do this, even though I've witnessed him do it live. Wow.
From the drum solo emerges a melody I'm sure I've heard before. I don't know where – in a jam, at a gig, maybe in one of the new songs they've been playing. It doesn't matter. It's beautiful. And once again they're building something huge, slowly. More and more sounds come into the picture, and lots of organ. They warp the melody into being both a riff and a melody, a melody which ends where it starts, a snake biting its own tail and digging it. Slow, contemplative, intelligent and beautiful. Those four words are, for me, the themes of this piece of music. Because, as I've said, this wasn't just a concert, this was a performance of a piece of music, by four amazing musicians.
They continue building their building, slowly rising, flowing like the seas pushed and pulled by the moon. Wow.
And bang. A new organ solo. Improvising (it seems) over the themes and melodies they had established so far. On a big-ass Steinmeyer church organ. From what I could see he had his hands full, so to speak, doing lots of stuff to change the sound while playing the organ simultaneoulsly.
At this point B & S are sitting down, waiting for Ståle.
He goes on for a while, before yet again dropping into a gentle, meadow-like sound. A short, but sweet bass solo follows from Bent, but Snah quickly joins in. They start building the grand finale. It's beautiful. They build it up to a climax, slowly, the melody continues…
More gentle vocals by Bent. Beautiful.
They rise again, and fall, into a mindnumbing, fistclenching climax — and rinse and repeat.
And the established melodies weaving into each other.
One more verse from Bent.
Rise and fall, each rise more majestic than the previous. Holy crap. My body has no appropriate response to all this,
We fall back, into a soundscape, and a slightly gentle grinding sound. My first thought is "Gullible's Travails" – but as soon as Bent sings "I've never seen this many faces" I realize it's the first ever live performance of "30/30"! I love this song, and think it's a great performance! The pling-plong and all.
After that the circle is fulfilled, with a soundscape mimicing the first. I m content.
Maybe it is because I just woke up from a first dreaming phase, but this must be by far the most beautiful concert review of motorpsycho I've ever read. Thank you very much Rolf, I almost feel like sitting in that massive dome … rather lying actually! Good to know it is documented by a fan in words – and sounds
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