Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Roll Call!

I thought the show was great. I particularly enjoyed the solo acoustic opening into Shuffle your Feet. New stuff, old stuff – I thought it all sounded great.

If I were to criticize something I would just say that they never kept the "flow" of the show going after the first few songs. A minor point since all the songs sounded great.

Originally posted by kurosawa-b/w:


Love Burns is from their first album. Definitely a highlight.

Don't know if "Love Burns" is the one I'm thinking of… But a number of the songs the on first BRMC sounded alot like Love and Rockets tunes to me.

For the first time, they actually seemed comfortable on stage.

Loved the show last night.

But admittedly. I don't know all of there stuff. What was the 2nd to last song before the encore. They should have ended with that song…

Thanks

Where was everyone? I looked and looked and didn't see any of you. At least I did have some friends around me so not all was lost.

I thought the show was great with a few exceptions. First off, I was thrilled to see Mark Gardener especially since I never had the pleasure of seeing Ride. Was very delighted with the Fairport Convention song that opened his set by that woman with a gorgeous voice.

For me, BRMC's set started lagging during Howl but picked up steam as the songs picked up a bit later on.

Was it me or did they seem to have all of their guitars tuned to B flat or some other very flat chord? It worked extremely well for some songs but not so well for a few others. All in all, I was quite happy with the show.

Also, I'm happy to say that I escaped injury as I was almost cloncked in the head a couple hundred times by Robert's guitar. When it wasn't Robert's it was Peter's.

BRMC Set List:
(Written as on list)

Complicated Situation
Fault Line
Devils Waitin
Shuffle Your Feet
Aint No Easy Way
Weight Of The World
Love Burns
White Palms
Punk Song
As Sure As The Sun
Rise Or Fall
Howl
Still Suspicion
U.S. Government (alt)
Sympathetic Noose
Promise

Spread Your Love
Stop
Gospel
The Line
Open Invitation

This was my second time seeing BRMC perform. First time was in 2002, opening up for Spiritualized. They did a pretty decent job back then. They did a very good job last night but continued to experience at least one problem: during several of their songs, I could not hear and/or understand the vocals, because the other instruments were drowning them out.

Highlights for me were the combination of "Shuffle Your Feet" and "Aint No Easy Way" (providing some sort of personal validation of "Howl" for me), the trio of "Love Burns", "White Palms", and "Whatever Happened to My Rock & Roll" (particularly the live version of "White Palms" … lighting worked really well with that one), and the rocking duo of "Spread Your Love" and "Stop".

All and all a good show, if not slightly bizarre. First, there were the two gentlemen up front who were escorted away by the bouncer, presumably because they were smoking something they shouldn't have been smoking. To their credit, they did not make big scene. And then there was that fire alarm that went off during one of the songs - could barely hear it because the music was so loud, but you definitely see the emergency lights blinking. Didn't know if I was supposed to evacuate to or not! And I could not tell exactly what happened on one side of the stage… did one of the ceiling lights fall? It was just an odd evening but good fun. Now if I could only figure out who the woman was wearing the "St Paul Fire" t-shirt…

M

Great show overall, couple of weird instances, but BRMC always has those.

If any one missed out on getting a poster, I have a few left for sale here:
BRMC Poster - Washington DC

That fire alarm thing was odd. I did smell something burning just afterwards, besides the pot the guys from Virgina were smoking. At one point, it was kind of funny while it was going off because Peter then looked around and had this look on his face as if he was thinking, 'Should we stop playing and run for our lives?". Then it stopped and all was back to full out rocking out.

No, the light didn't fall from the ceiling. Peter just got sick of it and kicked it out of the way. Afterwards he apologized and said that he had to kill the light because it was getting on his nerves.

Originally posted by Jaguär:
That fire alarm thing was odd. I did smell something burning just afterwards, besides the pot the guys from Virgina were smoking.

One of their lights caught on fire, but was quickly put out.

Just got back from San Francisco yesterday in time to see the gig (my first time seeing B.R.M.C.) and was pleasantly surprised though a bit underwhelmed.

DJ Strange, myself and our crazy crew of friends were there, on the right middle side, and then later in the show, on the left middle side.

Firstly, to Mark Gardener. I didn't know it was going to be acoustic and to be honest, none of us liked his set that much. DJ Strange remarked the group sounded like buskers, and overall we were unimpressed. The Ride songs were cool, but totally lacking their original energy with all of those cool shoegaze-y, fuzzy, lustrous guitars (of course, done acoustically they would, but it made for even more disappointment). The 2 performers with him seriously looked like they partied at our parent's houses back in the '60's/'70's and I swear they could be poster children for Meeps on 14th Street. When Mark said they were going to bring a full band along in December, I said to myself that I wished he had done so now. Ah well.

When Peter from B.R.M.C. took to the stage in the beginning for his acoustic sets, DJ Strange said that he had 10 times more the presence than Mark Gardener did. All of us swore that if Peter sang the word "Jesus" one more time though, we'd lose it!

Almost all of us were disappointed in the fact that overall, the show was very slow and sedate. Of course, we knew that mostly songs from "Howl" were to be featured, but we'd wished they'd mixed it up. At one point a friend of mine went into the back sitting area and fell asleep, and DJ Strange left one song 'til the end due to being so tired. We felt bored.

The song highlights for me were, naturally, "Stop," "Whatever Happened To My Rock 'N' Roll (Punk Song)" and "Love Burns." I wished they'd done "In Like The Rose."

I wanted MORE songs with energy, drive and pure out rock 'n roll but I didn't get them. I wish the setlist had been full of more of that rather than the slow stuff. (That said, I did like the slow songs - there was no one song that they did that made me want to leave - I just wanted more energy!).

The best thing about the gig for me was the atmosphere. I simply loved the lighting effects (strobe lights and all) and swirling, ever present smoke. Very nice. Reminded me of the scenes from "9 Songs" in which you see B.R.M.C. on stage.

After the gig, we all headed over to DC9 where I ran into Peter. I spoke with him briefly, asking why "In Like The Rose" was left out and he said, "Well, we can't do everything." I asked him how their inclusion in "9 Songs" came about and he told me the story. He was very nice and it was cool meeting him.

After we wandered from DC9 at closetime back to the 9:30 Club, we saw Peter standing against the 9:30 Club building wall, talking with one other guy. As he waved to me (cool indeed!) we wondered why he wasn't off partying, etc. - it was kind of weird, though nice to see.

P.S. Jaguar, I don't see "Whatever Happened To My Rock 'N' Roll (Punk Song)" listed on your set list. I'm sure I recall them doing that one?

Cheers

DJ Medusa.

Was very delighted with the Fairport Convention song that opened his set by that woman with a gorgeous voice.

you're fucking kidding me, jag. i walked in about ten minutes into his set and i missed him covering fairport?!? do you know which song it was or remember any lyrics?

seeing mark gardener was damn cool, as ride are one of my favorite bands and i never got to see them live, either. normally, i'm not much for the stripped-down, pseudo-coffeehouse vibe, but i thought he pulled it off just fine, mostly because i'm a sucker for a 12-string acoustic. the ride songs were a real treat, and the other songs were decent. i'd love to see him with a full band and hear how the songs translate; i assume they'd be much better. i thought his voice sounded great, and of course it would sound better buried under a wall of guitars.

i went over to DC9 to see the antiques but returned for about 30-40 minutes of BRMC. they sounded alright, but i was a bit underwhelmed. they are definitely moving away from the jesus and mary chain sound – i see them evolving towards a spiritualized kind of thing – but the new songs seemed a bit lifeless. apparently, i missed the best 30 minutes of the set.

Originally posted by snailhook:

Was very delighted with the Fairport Convention song that opened his set by that woman with a gorgeous voice.

you're fucking kidding me, jag. i walked in about ten minutes into his set and i missed him covering fairport?!? do you know which song it was or remember any lyrics?

seeing mark gardener was damn cool, as ride are one of my favorite bands and i never got to see them live, either. normally, i'm not much for the stripped-down, pseudo-coffeehouse vibe, but i thought he pulled it off just fine, mostly because i'm a sucker for a 12-string acoustic. the ride songs were a real treat, and the other songs were decent. i'd love to see him with a full band and hear how the songs translate; i assume they'd be much better. i thought his voice sounded great, and of course it would sound better buried under a wall of guitars.

i went over to DC9 to see the antiques but returned for about 30-40 minutes of BRMC. they sounded alright, but i was a bit underwhelmed. they are definitely moving away from the jesus and mary chain sound – i see them evolving towards a spiritualized kind of thing – but the new songs seemed a bit lifeless. apparently, i missed the best 30 minutes of the set.

Yeah, you seemed to have missed all of the best stuff. BRMC were definitely better for the 1st half of their set. As a whole it was good with a few glitches and mistunings, etc., but they are definitely evolving. The band has always had a very healthy respect for their elders and it is even more obvious now. Will be interesting to see where this all leads.

Medusa, I was already prepared for some acoustic loving so wasn't disappointed in the least. In fact, I loved all of it except for maybe Gospel which was just a little too Jesus freaky for me and dragged too much. I do hope that the full band tour takes off. I got the impression that it just wasn't a definite tour thing at this point. With the Shoegaze revival and all of the Ride fans and it being a full band, I'm sure it will do well. Bring Amusement Parks On Fire or some Nugazers along for support who have a draw or would appeal to those unenlightened to the scene who need some kind of hype or gimmick yet don't require a big fee as of yet.

BTW, they did do Whatever Happened To My Rock And Roll (Punk Song). They just call it Punk Song. Look at the list again. It's under White Palms.

Snail, you have no idea how much I kept wishing during that Fairport Convention song that you were there! It was beautiful! Mark wasn't even on stage at the time. It was just the woman, whose name I could never figure out. Kel (short for Kelly maybe), or some out of the normal sounding name. But I can almost never understand what anyone is saying onstage over mics. She sang the song a cappella except for a little fiddling around with some delays or effects pedals about 3/4ths of the way through the song. You would have been highly impressed. Maybe even fallen in love.

As far as which song, it's been bugging me like crazy ever since. I just can't remember the name but I've always sucked with that. It was one that Sandy Denny sang and is a very traditonal Irish, or maybe Northern English, ballad that you would readily recognize. At least, any self-respecting Fairport fan would. May have been on Leige And Lief but it's definitely on one of their more popular albums. Very slow and features the vocals more than anything. I'm not in a situation to listen to any of my albums now so can't easily research it and I really don't feel like downloading a lot of stuff either. Maybe I'll go to a few sites to pick someone else's brains.

-Edit-
Snail, I'm pretty sure it was Reynardine. In fact, I'd put money on it.

> BTW, they did do Whatever Happened To My Rock And Roll (Punk Song). They just call it Punk Song. Look at the list again. It's under White Palms.

Jet lag!

Damn … I can't read these days. ;)

Cheers

DJ Medusa.

The show was great except for that horrible rendition the US govt. Damn good show.

Medusa, excellent review, I've never seen you write so much! It made me feel like I was there.

Originally posted by Doctor Doom:
Medusa, excellent review, I've never seen you write so much! It made me feel like I was there.

Damn, you just haven't been reading my reviews in other threads. (See my Berlin review, for instance). :p

Cheers

DJ Medusa.