It’s been several days and my ears are still ringing, which is way more frightening than cool. Friday’s long anticipated (by me) Ghostland Observatory show is to blame. Children of Men has led me to beleive this is very bad news.
I’ve been evangelizing Ghostland since I randomly caught them at ACL where they destroyed (though I did mistake the lead singer for a female ((pink shirt and braids really threw me))). After sitting around for like an hour and half the semi-local Black Angels were a plesant surprise as an opener, kind of darkwave, psychadelic, unintelligable. There’s six people in the band, but near as I can tell, one of them doesn’t do anything but hold one key at a time on her keyboard. And shake moroccas. I really want that job.
At midnight, Ghostland finally showed, laser lights and all (lasers have come a long way since Pink Floyd night at the Planetarium, but… not that far). For the first forty minutes they were everything I remember and more. Manic, throbbing, ear splitting (sadly), and inventive.
And then they came back for an encore. And they never left. Normally, I’d salute this kind of bang for your buck set list creation, but honestly, even for an evangelizer like me, it got old. If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say that their sound lacks enough variation to sustain an hour and half show, and the longer it goes, the more you start to realize that their song construction is somewhat repetetive. Odd opening build, explosive vocals and gyration, crescendo, false ending that induces applause, then explosive it-ain’t-over- finish, capped with about sixty seconds of pure tone at high decibel. I don’t have a problem with it per say, in fact, it made for an incredibly entertaining hour. Had I just walked before it was over, I’d not only be full of praise, but able to hear.
