09.14.23 – Thursday – Saint Vitus Bar – Before show

A somewhat harried process getting to Brooklyn. Satnav calls it more than the usual traffic on the route, but I did it yesterday too and this evening was about right. An infinity of vehicles, all trying to squeeze into the same stupid tubes to get somewhere.

Tonight is the Desertfest New York 2023 pre-show at the Saint Vitus Bar, and the four-band bill — Sonic Taboo, Lo-Pan, Duel and Colour Haze — is a suitable precursor to the two full fest days to come. It’s not packed yet, but I expect it will be. There’s an awful lot of adventure that’s going to happen between now and Saturday night.

I’ll do my best to keep up as much as possible, and if you’re reading this or anything that comes out in the next couple days, thank you.

Here we go:

Sonic Taboo

By the skin of my earplugs, I made it to see New York’s Sonic Taboo, and the instrumental trio were already rolling out steady nod by the time I made it to the back to watch them. In medias res as it was, and out of my fucking mind as I was to be late, I won’t say I was in the headspace yet, but I did my best, saying a couple quick hellos while trying to position my brain in the moment. Sonic Taboo, who are apparently motorcycle aficionados, were conducive to digging in but not too elaborate or complex to give up the paramount roll. I wasn’t egregiously late, at least not in reality, but it was enough to throw me off. Missed three songs or so, which was about half the set. Lesson learned, about checking out Sonic Taboo, if not about leaving earlier, which I also should’ve done. But they sounded cool and were selling vinyl, so perhaps a Bandcamp perusal is in order. The pre-show here last year did right with Druids, and 2023 easing into the evening with Sonic Taboo’s palette-cleansing riffery worked well along similar lines conceptually, if not with the same sound.

—

Duel

Next week they’ll be at Ripplefest Texas in their native Austin. Next month they head back to Europe for another go there that also includes a Desertfest — in Antwerp — and I don’t know what’s up after that, but it’s Duel, so chances are it’s something. They put out Live at Hellfest (review here) earlier this year, and between that and having seen them the couple times I have at this point, including twice last summer, I feel reasonably comfortable with high expectations when it comes to their live show. They are, and have been, a rager, and they just go and go and go. Also rip. “Children of the Fire” is always a highlight, and I’ll put “Fears of the Dead” right up there with it in terms of this-is-a-chorus-you-want-to-dude-shout-along-with, but fresh off a plane as they were and maybe haggard for that, Duel only benefitted from the wild-eyed madness of improper sleep cycles, and the crazier they were the crazier the shit sounded and the more everybody went nuts. Total win. Nice when you know you’re getting something awesome and then you do. They fucking went on early. That’s who they are.

—

Lo-Pan

Jeff up front? It’s just crazy enough to work! It’s been just over four years since I last saw Lo-Pan, that long as well since they put out their most recent studio album, Subtle (review here), and that feels like too much time by at least half. To wit, at some point, Jeff moved out front. I stood over by bassist Scott Thompson, which meant that the low end was basically eating me alive, but hell, I’ve been down that road with Lo-Pan before, and you’re not going to hear me complain. To think of it, there is no wrong place to stand. If you’re over by Chris Thompson’s guitar, you’re not wrong. I sure as crap wasn’t wrong where I was, and if you’re up the middle you’ve got Jesse Bartz’s kick drum punching you in the face — or kicking — and Jeff Martin’s vocals cutting through, all soulful glissando and whatnot. So yes, they destroyed. Like Duel, it took them a song or two to warm up, but they locked it down quickly and it turns out they were fucking Lo-Pan and they destroy so that’s what they did. “El Dorado.” “Sage.” “Go West” and “Ascension Day.” They always seem to mix it up, but they hit it hard across the whole set and were a blast to see after some tumultuous years. One of those bands you miss after a while.

—

Colour Haze

Magic. A guy named John came up to me before Colour Haze went on to tell me I’d introduced him to the band. I heard that a couple times by the end of the night. That was a trip, though not nearly as much so as the set itself. The headline is they played “Peace, Brothers and Sisters!,” the 22-minute forge in which much of the genre of heavy psych was cast. That and the shorter-but-no-less-epic “Love” from the Munich outfit’s landmark 2004 self-titled LP (discussed here) closed out the night, but more recent stuff like the title-track of 2019’s We Are (review here) or “Ideologigi” from last year’s Sacred (review here) was definitely welcome too after they led off with “Turquoise” and “Goldmine.” The room was electric, before, during and after the set. Between songs, the shouts of “thank you!” and “you’re so good” made people laugh and the joy of the set was felt all the more as the band met that energy in their performance, keyboardist/organist Jan Faszbender tight on the Vitus Bar stage behind founding guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek on the left side while Mani Merwald — who might be one of the best drummers I’ve ever seen play, and I’ve seen a few at this point in my life — and bassist Mario Oberpucher held down stage right, the latter a quiet presence but a resounding fit with the band’s four-piece dynamic. “Peace, Brothers and Sisters!” ended noisy, as one would hope, and the unexpected addition of “Love” made my night, no shit. I was likely in a minority of people there who’d seen the band before, but even if this wasn’t my first experience with Colour Haze, in another incarnation or in this one — I was lucky enough to catch them last December in Stockholm — the fact that it was something special was inescapable, and as somebody who was there the last time Colour Haze came to the US, which was in 2006 for Emissions From the Monolith 8 in Youngstown, Ohio, I’ll say their sound has only grown richer since then. They’re playing the Main Stage of the first night of the festival-proper, so this won’t be the last word about them, but I have the feeling that, if you were there for this, you’re going to remember it for a long time to come. I am, anyhow.

—

More pics after the jump.

Sonic Taboo

Duel

Lo-Pan

Colour Haze

Tags: Brooklyn, Colour Haze, Desertfest New York, Desertfest New York 2023, Desertfest NYC 2023, Desertfest NYC 2023 Coverage, Duel, Lo-Pan, New York City, Sonic Taboo

This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2023 at 11:22 am and is filed under Features, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.