Black Lips Bring the Barbarism to a Sold Out GAMH: LastNight Concert Review
(Photo courtesy of Yahoo)
By Nathan Nugent
Full of feeble stage antics, bad sampling and songs almost completely absent of a hook worth remembering, the Black Lips stomped their way through a little over an hour of thrashing psychedelic garage bop Friday night. The sold out crowd at the Great American Music Hall merely looked aloof until the encore turned nasty.
Their two to three-minute songs were often out of key and between the four members, three took turns singing with not a single one convincing of the part. They mumbled inaudibly between the songs, knocked over mic stands and made terrible screeching sounds when one guitarist tried to use the stand as a slide and the other guitarist attempted playing a solo with his teeth. There were moments when the band had a chance to shine, playing some Misfits-inspired struts to a waltz rhythm and working off of a few middle eastern scales to give them psychedelic cred, but for whatever they could do well, the bassist spitting up into the air and catching the loogie back into his mouth was the most impressive display of talent that evening.
Creative in expression but sloppy in tone and performance, the Black Lips appear unable at this young point in their career to sound like anything more then an immature psychedelic garage band -- too hip and modern match the acts of the '60’s they draw their style from, and too spacey and uncoordinated to come off like a top bill rock act.
Finally, after three poor attempts at a redeeming encore, the lead guitarist started throwing his half-full beer bottles at his amplifier. He did it just hard enough to spray beer all over the staff, audience, equipment and other band members, but not rockstar enough to actually break the glass. In return, the balcony crowd and the pit started tossing their beer cups onto the stage and booing. At this point the drummer confronts the guitarist - yelling and pushing on him for creating the scene, they both give each other a big fuck you and all the band members scurry off stage in a temper tantrum.
Critics Notebook:
Personal Bias: I still can’t wear jeans that tight.
Random Detail: Cute little rocker girls gave each other high fives hoping to “meet the right guys tonight.”
Better Than: A shitty happy band.
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