Motorpsycho - Lille Vega, København, Denmark 9/24/01
From Aural Innovations #18 (January 2002)
Well, since the last time I saw the band at Stengade, I have managed to get a hold of nearly all their studio recordings, except Barracuda and the new one. I still have to say this is a band who in the studio make music that just does not turn me on. Why do I go see them then?? Well, this is an exciting live band. They mix up the set every night and they do a lot of improvised jamming on different tunes. You never know what you will get. Sure you will get half a dozen of their popish songs, but other than that, it could be totally freaked out or several long jammed out songs but always at least 2 hours of music and well played. I am surprised that this band is not popular or even listed on the etree network, as they support taping.
Anyway, I arrived at a little before 9 and was surprised to see the place with a lot of people already as I thought doors were to open at 9, but it was 8 and the band were starting at 9:15. I ran into Henrik, Nik and Anders from On Trial, Ralph and then the Norwegian Motorpsycho trading group that were following the band around for part of the tour. Anders H. and I had done quite a few trades and he has been recording WE in Norway for me. He also loves the band now. Anyway, the band started right at 9:15 and opened with The Slow Phaseout, a new song I had never heard. It was a more popish number and I thought to myself, ok... Then they played Going To California. I had read that they had been doing some cool jams during this song and the people were right. This song has a great jumpy riff and the keyboard and guitar interplay is great. Both the keyboard and guitar solos were long and pretty cool. Very jazzy. I had never heard the band be so jazzy. They played a lot of songs off the newest CD, which I have not heard and they sounded like late 60s influenced jazzy pop rock stuff. Some were not bad but most did not turn me on much. Everyone in the band sings both lead and backing vocals, despite none of them being very good singers. I think some of this adds to the charm of the band, in the same way that their jamming is quite primitive if you compare them to a band like Gov't Mule or the Allman Brothers (Clearly a big influence on the way they play these days and they even played In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed at a few shows last year!). When your Dead even had the drummer playing a banjo and singing lead vocals. After these songs the band really picked it up with The Other Fool and a long version of Whip that Ghost, the bands tribute to the Allman Brothers. I believe it was excellent and went into High Time directly. The band's second encore was The One Who Went Away was played without drums as the drummer had broken his bass drum pedal. They seemed like they were going to play more but did not due to this. Cool show.
Set List: The Slow Phaseout, Going to California, For Free, Never let you out, Neverland, The Nerve Tattoo, Monday??, Bedroom Eyes, Blindfolded, Watersound, All is Loneliness, Sideway Spiral III, When your Dead, Trapdoor, The Other Fool, Whip that Ghost, I Believe>High Time, The One Who Went Away.
Reviewed by Scott Heller