Photos: Brian Jonestown Massacre at the Teragram Ballroom
Michelle Shiers on
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For their second sold-out show at the Teragram Ballroom, psych-rockers the Brian Jonestown Massacre gave a three-plus-hour performance full of deep cuts and even deeper lighting. The 27-song set felt quite long, even for their most ardent fans who stood attentively as the band carried on through their hefty catalog. They opened their show with “Never, Ever!” from their 1993 debut and “Geezers” from 2003’s “And This Is Our Music”.
Prickly frontman Anton Newcombe made sure to remind fans to “fuck off” for yelling out requests that were never to be acknowledged. Newcombe noted that the band had written some new songs and insisted that their music should be considered “retroactive, not retro” and barely an hour passed in their set before he mentioned calling up Dandy Warhols frienemy Courtney Taylor-Taylor on the phone to talk song titles.
The crowd came a bit more lysergically alive 11 songs in for the band’s most recognizable song “Anemone,” from 1996’s “Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request.” Near the end of the night, the band brought out Lilys’ constant Kurt Healy to play acoustic guitar during a cover of “Ycjcyaqftj” and “Cambridge California.”
Backed by six other musicians including the ever-recognizable Joel Gion who boasted his tambourine-shaking nonchalance all night, Newcombe seems to be older, wiser, sober and with huge gray mutton chops, but clearly still retains the same self-aggrandizing bite he always had. They closed the night with 1998’s “Lantern” and 1995 “She’s Gone” and the most devoted fans slowly filed out of the venue having been immersed in BJM’s particularly branded neo-psychedelic wall of sound.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre were supported by fellow psych-rockers Mystic Braves.
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