Livereviews

The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Vega, June 18th 2006

So, wow, is Anton gonna kick anybody in the head?
Is he gonna squirt blood from a syringe at those in the front row?
Are they gonna play for 15 minutes or 15 hours? Or at all?

Did anyone ever know about them before they saw “Dig”, one of the saddest and most hilarious musical documentaries of all time? OK, Guf from Baby Woodrose and Hobitten from On Trial are here, you can rest assured they did, but the rest of the audience, myself included, only caught on with that movie. Which, among other things, demonstrated that Anton Newcombe has a big musical talent, much bigger than that of his nemesis, Courtney from Dandy Warhols, but, unlike Courtney, he’s just not able to write that one single stand-out song, let alone a hit. Which makes 2 ½ hours of this unbearable, especially when no one gets kicked in the head. One guitarist gets angry with his guitar, throws it at the roadie, and storms off stage 1 ½ hours in, that’s about as much action as we get. Then they talk him into coming back onstage and continuing the show for another hour. Which is when I feel like throwing something, a beer or myself in lack of a guitar, at the band to make them stop. Instead, I just storm off. Maybe it would have helped if I had heckled Anton some, shouting out requests for “Bohemian Like You”, or something.

Gotta be a bitch getting known that way. I don’t know if BJM ever played Cph before, but if they did, I’m sure they didn’t play a 500+ capacity venue like Store Vega. Which would probably have helped create a more intimate feeling, something Vega isn’t exactly famous for where I come from. The sound is way too low, too, which is a bummer. Actually, I figure out I haven’t been in Store Vega since I saw Motörhead play here 5 years ago. I’ll have no problem with making that another 5 years.

Jon A