Made it to the show this time.
I'll begin by offering an apology for the EXTREMELY poor quality of the photos. Luckily for you, there are copious photos from the tour already circulating around the net, and for the most part if you've seen one you've seen them all.
So...cold, windy rainy night upstate? Nothing to do? You can be at the Blender in about two hours, and the good news is you only have to spend about 5 minutes out in the elements. From Grand Central take the 6 local downtown to 23rd street, exit the subway, walk half a block west on 23rd and get inside, you're there. Sweet. There will be some very nice people there to greet you. Also to pat you down. If you've brought a nice camera with you, they will admire it, then tell you you can't bring it inside unless you've got a press badge / photo pass. Otherwise, no professional lens cameras allowed. If, however, for example you've brought your 12 megapixel cybershot with 12x optical zoom, that's perfectly ok, since the lens doesn't come off. Go figure. Anyway, to be fair they were very nice to me, and did keep it behind the desk for me, much to my relief, because I wasn't exactly in a position to go home, put it away and come back at this point. On with the show.
I went inside to stake my claim to a piece of floor as near to front/center as I could get. An interesting thing about going to a lot of gigs alone is that I almost always end up standing next to at least one other person who is also rather obviously on their own. Tonight was no exception, and I was actually sandwiched between two of them this time. The first was a rather shaggy, boisterous dude in a Ministry t-shirt with a few facial piercings and an open can of Beck's in each hand, from which he was alternately drinking. We exchanged a few pleasantries, during which I noticed with amusement that the three rings through his lower lip caused him to lisp rather comically, and that each time he took a swig of beer they made little musical clinking sounds against the can. On my left was a pretty girl/woman who could possibly have been 16 or 36 or anywhere in between. We didn't talk, but did catch each other looking a few times and spent the rest of the gig studiously trying not to appear as if we were looking at anything other than the ceiling or the floor or the merch table on the far side of the venue.
At last the lights went down and American Memory Project took the stage. At least, I think they did. The screen they spent the entire show behind made it hard to be sure. I could see Justin Bennet pretty well from where I was, but Bill Morrison was sketchy at best. And I guess judging by the heavy-duty visuals on the screen, you weren't really meant to see them. Anyway, I was pretty impressed by the whole thing, really. The visuals were great and the music was excellent as well. My respect for William Morrison as a musician has gone up several notches since last night, and while I'd seen Justin play with Skinny Puppy on tour a few years ago, his drumming abilities were on display on a much grander scale here (and later with ohGr as well) than anything I'd seen before. The guy is GOOD. And must've been exhausted by the end of the night. So as a veteran of uncounted hundreds of gigs, 99% of which were supported by bands that made me wish I'd brought something to throw at them, AMP were a pleasant surprise. And god bless 'em, they didn't drag it out too long, either.
Now the obligatory "wait for the headliner to get it together and hit the stage" bit. Lights back on, check out the merch table and look at all the things I'd like to have but didn't bring any cash to buy. My shaggy friend, who was pretty well innebriated at this point, clapped me on the arm and told me very amiably "jusht to warn you man, when ohGr getsh on shtage I'll be dancin! I get movin around pretty good sho if I bump ya or anything I'll jusht apologishe in advansh. Jusht give me a good kick if you want, man." So I thanked him for the warning just as if I'd never been to a gig before in my entire life and if he hadn't let me know, why I would'nt have known what was happening to me! I talked with him for a few more minutes and clued him in on what to expect, as he hadn't seen any of the youtube videos or anything. On my left, the dance of "I'm not looking at you / you're not looking at me" continued gracefully, my dancing partner finding a piece of paper stuck to her boot at just the same moment I noticed for the first time there was a roof on this particular building, and became engrossed with the architectural details. Then hooray! the lights went out again!
Justin was the first on stage and the martial drum-beat opening to Shhh went on for a good 5 minutes before anyone else appeared. The kid's got stamina, for sure. The rest of the band emerged, followed by Ogre in the costume and mask that for some reason makes me think "Snot Man." I had seen it in several video clips and photos from the tour, so I was expecting it, but up close and live I noticed more details, not least of which was the security camera mounted on the torso-area, complete with flashing red light. Say what you will about the man, but for someone who's been in the business as long as he has, his creative spark hasn't dimmed in the slightest. He was under a sheet and had to be led onto the stage by the world's most cheerful-looking roady, but by the time the sheet came off and the band had launched full-bore into Shhh chaos ensued. What followed was a gradual shedding of layers of costume, mask and make-up, ultimately revealing the face of my hero of the last 25 years, looking like the world's craziest clown, a sort of Ronald McDonald in grey and black instead of white and red, a sleevless straight-jacket instead of the yellow clown suit. The soundtrack to this macabre strip-tease turned out to be the entire DIMD album from start to finish, which I wasn't expecting at all. Nearly all of the songs from the new album translated very well played live, despite a few moments where Ogre seemed to have forgotten a line or two. A few highlights from this portion of the show- Ogre grabbing cameras from the audience and gleefully taking pictures of himself; reading Bill Moseley's monologue from the intro to Feelin' Chicken from a piece of paper and flinging it into the crowd where it was likely torn to bits in the squabble for possession; Ogre throwing great handfulls of feathers into the crowd throughout Feelin' Chicken; The whole band coming out front for a bow and group hug after playing Witness and the end of the DIMD portion of the show.
It has to be said that whatever some people may think of the new album, Ogre's pride and satisfaction with it was obvious in every moment of the show. He certainly was in a good humor, smiling and laughing a lot, such a contrast to the way I've seen him so many times in the past. The band seemed very happy as well, and there was a lot of joking and banter between all of them. They played as a very tight unit and all seemed to play well off of each other.
After DIMD came what were, for me, the highlights of the whole show, starting with a version of Minus that could have peeled paint off the walls, followed by a seriously groovy set that even made me want to dance- Magik, Water and (my memory was getting hazy after a long day at this point) I think Pore. They came back for 2 encores, Lusid and Cracker, both of which were amazing. My only (very small not-even-really-a-complaint) complaint was the absence of Dog, which I really would've liked to hear. But like I said, no complaint at all. The show ended with a drum solo from Justin that just went off the wall, and finally slowed and slowed until it ground to a halt. Normally I sneer at drum solos but this was an exception.
This was the first time I've seen ohGr live, and the energy of the band combined with the pretty small venue took me back to the first time I saw Skinny Puppy back in the mid-eighties with Severed Heads, and sort of made me feel like a kid again, and reminded me of how glad I am that this man is still making music.
Scale of 1 to 10: venue - 8 / crowd - 9 / setlist - 9.75 / band - 11
That is all. (Wasn't it enough?)
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