The Avalon, Los Angeles
To start, I had a feeling that musicianship might get outweighed by power with Secret Machines. They are not the musical technicians that, say, Mute Math are. They are experimenters. I knew it wouldn’t be about technical graces. But I didn’t know what to expect, actually.
One thing I really didn’t expect was the age of the crowd — they were 30s and some beyond, rather than the usual bouncing 20s types I see at concerts.
On appearance, they were very subdued in dark nondescript clothes (except how can you not watch Benjamin in that jumpsuit thing and not drool, he’s just … darling…. ). Brandon looked hidden rather than stylish in his growing out hair, but Brandon is most of the show’s focus, and every bit the creator. Josh is always fun to watch with his big dark eyes and wild mane flapping like a muppet.
I came away with mixed feelings on what Secret Machines are about, though, which is … well, rather more painterly than I had thought. And of course VOLUMEMONGOUS.
They pack more sheer amp wattage into a space than any band I’ve seen since 19?,::cough::, and that’s saying something. We’re talking WALLS of Marshalls shored up against the in-the-round scaffolding. My husband likened the experience to audible massage. It was sheer awesomeness in terms of its overabundence of raw sound. The pleasure of having a familiar tune fill your very bones is like nothing else.
But there were difficulties, one major problem being the first set, which seems to lump all their similarly paced songs in an overly drawn out pileup of steady pulsation, some of my favorites even slowed down a bit to fit that collage. I came away feeling it was more appropriate for listening in a quiet, pensive mood, rather than in concert. Or maybe you were just meant to be stoned, as I could smell some of our audience definitely was….. I ended up feeling that the volume and pace gave short shrift to the great writing and showcase of vocals that the recorded versions provide.
It was like an oilspill of sound — Benjamin’s shimmering guitars bleeding into too much keyboard bassline and too many smeary loop effects that were lost on an acoustic theater of that size (fairly small). Which may be what they wanted, but I was hard-pressed to audibly discern some of the parts I like best. (The portion they played of their huge hit Pharoah’s Daughter was absolutely tired, and brief. Were they bored with it? They might be.) Some of the audience looked like they were rather yawn-y about then. Some people would attribute this to the Ten Silver Drops material just …. being boring. I don’t know. I think it could have been done differently. Tempo choices I wouldn’t have made.
Second: as the set progressed, I could see that the actual problem was most likely Brandon himself, who was blowing his nose once or twice between tunes, and whose voice and demeanor was not energetic in the least. Oh man, he’s SICK, I thought. That SUCKS. Poor guy. Can’t do anything about that. I’m not saying I hated one little bit of it, but it may well have been better on another night. Oh well.
The next set was however was much brighter, utilizing very interesting transitions in and out of a mixed bag of both earlier and current songs, irrespective of popularity (They even played Marconi’s Radio –THAT in concert? and it worked!). This allowed some space in the paintbox for single runs and hushed pauses, and a few crashing entries in tunes like Nearly Nowhere and I Hate Pretending that were just pure lightening (@@!!). The unity in timing these more delicate points was really spotless among the three of them, and a delight to watch. Josh was pure energy, completely solid. “Solid” is good in, say, pop, but this is HEAVY. I mean weight: It’s as if sheer will carries through his beats. His conviction is what you hear. I LOVE that. They ran through a bunch of great tunes, starting at The Road Leads Where it’s Led and finishing up with First Wave Intact, which was surprisingly good; the crowd seemed to just be getting really really into it, which is where they should have BEGUN, and then it was over. Dang.
Well, health is a bitch when you’re traveling to another city every two days, and an especially heavy burden when the show is just three players, with focus on one, and you’re it.
I wish them all good things, and more happy and freer times ahead, so they can get back to their initial battery-charged level. I will still buy them and love them, because they have so much evident devotion to their particular sound, and are not afraid to experiment in an age of pre-packaged garbage pop.
And because somewhere in my heart, there still lurks an adolescent boy waiting for that wall of Marshalls. Yeah, baby!
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