Brian Jonestown Massacre at the Metro (9/14/05)

This was the first time I've seen BJM. You might have seen the movie Dig, or you might have read my half assed review of it, or neither. If you've listened to late '60s Rolling Stones, you know what Brian Jonestown sounds like. Some background, the music is great, the lead singer, Anton Newcombe, is psycho. That's about it.

The show lasted over two hours, and they played 10 songs. Seriously, ten songs in over two hours. There were two reasons for this. Some songs were seemingly endless. For example, they closed with "Swallowtail" and it lasted probably close to a half hour. No joke. The songs that didn't take twenty minutes to play were usually followed by 15 to 20 minutes of ranting from Anton. This isn't really a surprise for anyone who has seen the movie. Anton comes off as someone who is pretty sure that he's the most brilliant fucking person on the planet, and I'm sure there are enough people surrounding him who feel similar that it just feeds his ego. Anyway, the rants are funny at first, but start getting old if you're my age and back starts to hurt after standing in roughly the same place for 3 hours. What's not clear, at least to me, is if Anton has always been this way, or if the band's newfound popularity since the opening the of the movie has convinced him that he needs to play to type. I never saw them before the movie, and it was filmed over seven or eight years, so you never know whether what shows up on film is the real deal, or if he's been edited to seem like even more of an asshole than he normally is. Also, keep in mind that the lineup that you see in the movie is completely different. BJM at this point is essentially Anton and whoever he can get to tour with him. No Matt Hollywood, no Joel Gion, no Miranda Lee Richards, no Peter Hayes, etc. Although, Peter Hayes will be in the same venue on Tuesday fronting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as they play tunes from their new album Howl, which I didn't like all that much at first, but is growing on me. I hope to be there.

The setlist, such as it was, stuck pretty closely to Tepid Peppermint Wonderland, which is the 38 song retrospective that was released shortly after the movie, and a good use of thirteen bucks (see, all of you iTunes freaks, buying actual CDs can still be a good value). The played one song off of Strung Out in Heaven, called Jennifer, that doesn't appear on TPW. The rest, from memory (and remember, it's like 5 days later now):

• When Jokers Attack
• Servo
• If Love is the Drug (this one lasted forever, too)
• Vaccuum boots (I think, but don't hold me to this one)
• Nailing Honey to the Bee
• Nevertheless
• Let Me Land Next To Your Flower
• Hide and Seek (again, they may or may not have played this one, but I think they did)

That's all I can remember/recognize, or think I can remember They did not play Who, Mary Please, or Anenome, which all would have totally rocked! Oh well.

The guys that opened for them, the High Dials, were actuallly really good for the two songs that I heard. I'll be checking out their album on Rhapsody.