Explosions In The Sky @ Variety Playhouse
Monday, April 14, 2008
I saw a flyer for this show a couple of months before they came and procrastinated in getting a ticket even though I really wanted to go. Turns out they sold out a few weeks before hand and I was sad :(. Fortunately, they decided to do a matine show as well and I quickly grabbed a pair of tickets.
Opening for them was a guy that went by the name Lichens. He and a few loop pedals and instruments sat in the middle of the stage. He started off with some almost synth sounding guitar loops and continued to build around that for the next 20 minutes or so. He brought in some vocals, did some beating on the guitar for drums, and took the audience really far out there. His set reminded me of the recording of Wireman O and Wireman Spacewars, and I throughly enjoyed it.
I was well prepared for this show, and grabbed another Sweetwater during the set break. Explosions came on stage and without ever saying a word(I like this) and began their journey. They took us through quiet times, slow building jams that seemed to never end but also never seemed to be the same. They took us through very exciting overdriven times, occasionally reminding me of 13 Day Mission(or maybe we reminded ourselves of Explosions?), and as with Lichens, I throughly enjoyed it. Occasionally the bass player would pick up a guitar and there would be 3 guitars blasting us all with a massive wall of sound which was very cool, the only other time I have seen that in a performance was with Battles. It is really great to see an instrumental rock group getting so much support. The variety holds about 400 people and the place was PACKED...this being their first show of 2 for the day. That being said, I look forward to seeing what kind of effect Explosions has on the industry as a whole and hope they are able to continue to grow their fan base by leaps and bounds.
- B
Labels: ShowReviews
posted by Conqueror @ 6:40 AM,
