Boa Drum 3/18/8

Went to see the Boredoms at the Fillmore the other night. Opening were Human Bell, who played slow blues-influenced mostly-instrumentals, apart from their last number, which randomly had guest vocalization by Will Oldham (!). Made me think of My Morning Jacket meets The Black Keys, although more sedate than either. Then came some boring (ha!) DJ type. And then, the Boredoms! They were playing "in the round", so a stage had been set up on the middle of the dance floor. They had three drum sets, one of which was (wo)manned by Yoshimi, who also had a little keyboard behind her. Eye rocked the mic, and had a stand full of effects (and possibly also CD turntables?) in front of him, as well as a guitar monster behind him that can only be described as Boredomsesque.

It was comprised of seven ex-Telecasters, cut and assembled to form a seven necked free-standing monster guitar. The necks alternated directions, such that four extended to the left and three to the right. The strings on a particular neck seemed to be tuned to the same note (Branca/Hummus style), and each neck to a different note, perhaps even forming a scale. Eye would swivel round and play the monster with drum sticks. There was a dude to the left of it whose main duty seemed to be retuning the monster when there was a chance, and replacing broken strings when necessary. Looked like he also had some electronic gear to monkey with when not being a monster guitar tech.

The show started in complete darkness, during which they must've crept through the crowd onto the stage. Then Eye started singing and twisting shamanistically at the center of the stage, with minimal illumination (a flashlight I guess?). My view was somewhat obscured by some tall hairy folk and their accompanying cloud of budsmoke, so I then decamped slightly to the left. The others gradually joined in, and before long a full-on Boredrum hootenanny was in effect. The music seemed to careen around the stage like a wave, crashing against rocks, forming eddies, circling around again building up steam. It's difficult to determine how they kept it going at a near-constant full throttle while still conveying a sense of upward motion, multiple climaxes, a rolling boil, the rhythmic equivalent of Shepard tones. This rhythmic motion was of course aided and abetted by Eye's masterful singing and effect manipulation, not to mention his tasteful monster guitar playing. The monster guitar was barely audible at first, but eventually they cranked it enough to hear its ringing chords. For their last piece, the guitar tech put drum sticks under the strings, Sonic Youth style.

They finished on a dime and exited, came back and played a great encore, and it seemed like the fun was over. I approached the stage to check out the gear. I leaned on a monitor on the edge of the stage behind Yoshimi's drum kit and observed. Ah yes, mmmm, interesting, etc. But I noticed that despite a lot of the crowd exiting, the hall lights had not come up and bad music was not yet being played on the PA. We all kept clapping for more, and lo and behold, they came back out for a triumphant second encore! I can't begin to describe how awesome this was. First of all, I was a foot away from Yoshimi, which was pretty exciting in itself, cuz she has a black belt in karate and takes lots of vitamins. But mostly it was awesome cuz I was practically onstage, and felt like I was inside the music. I could see Eye giving them Eye-cues, and everything was very much in stereo. After too short a time, they again left the stage. We valiantly clapped on to bring them back, but to no avail. I went over to the other side to check out the guitar monster. An older Fillmore dude guarded the stage and told the same Rick Nielsen joke to all who approached.