[kj] (OT) BRMC Live

[T.B.]

Saw Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the "Observatory" theater in Costa Mesa
Sunday night. This was only the second time I've seen this band live, the
first being over half a decade ago when they opened for The Jesus and Mary
Chain at The Wiltern in LA (which was an excellent pairing and a great show,
btw). Despite the fact this was only my second time seeing them, I really
like most of their stuff and own all the albums and even the short run EPs.

They had a date at The Wiltern in LA on Saturday but I thought it might be
cool checking them out closer to home in a smaller theater with hopefully
less hassles on Sunday instead. This was the first time I'd been to this
venue in well over 10 years despite living only about 15 minutes away. Back
when it used to be called The Galaxy, I'd see bands like Concrete Blonde
play here and it was kind of a mellow dinner theater type atmosphere. Now
under new ownership, the place seems to have gotten a low budget makeover
that consists of buckets of black paint, heavy black curtains and almost
zero lighting so the main theater is like a pitch black poorly ventilated
musty cave. They also have a second, small room with a bar where other
(unknown) bands play that you can duck into if you wanna opt out of the main
theater such as when whoever the opening band was nearly put me to sleep.
The only problem is, the sound bleeds out into the back of the main theater
so it quickly gets annoying if you're back at the bar and you're hearing two
bands (especially the headliner) playing at the same time. Late in BRMC's
set when I was back by the bar, it was a mellow, introspective BRMC song
mixed with 3rd rate punk pop from the room behind the bar like I was next
door to the neighbor from hell.

I left late to get there as close as possible to BRMC's set and to miss any
opening band (fail) and because The Observatory has a small parking lot that
fills up with the early arrival dinner crowd, they route everyone to an
industrial business parking lot a few blocks away which kinda sucked. For
that privilege, I paid $10. Even getting there at 9pm, I still had to kill
almost an hour before BRMC came on first watching the dull as fuck
pretentious shoegazer opening band (you know you're in for a swell time when
the keyboard player wears a hoodie), then opting to check out the cute
blonde girl-fronted surf garage band in the smaller room for a few songs.

Honestly, BRMC was just alright. Their playing was faultless, vocals were
solid but BRMC's set just didn't seemed to be paced very well with large
groups of slow songs just dampening any momentum they'd have going.  Every
few songs, they'd play a rocker like 666 Conducer or Beat The Devil's Tattoo
and things would pick up but then it was 2 or 3 slow songs, especially in
the last half of the generous 2+ hour show. And when these guys play a slow
song... it's like audio Quaaludes. They had a pretty lousy lighting setup as
well - everything was backlit so about 90% of the time, you're looking at
silhouettes on stage. Worse, this was by far the most easily distracted,
talky audience I've been around in years.  Any time they'd play a slower
song, everyone would be chatting loudly or talking on cellphones.  I never
thought I'd say I prefer an LA audience to another city's, but Orange County
at least in this case was the lamest, rudest and most self-absorbed group of
douches imaginable. 

Add to that the sound was mostly mediocre, especially depending on where you
stood. I pretty much went from the front of the pit, back next to the
soundboard, up to the balcony and back down to the bar and back up in the
pit trying to find some sort of sweet spot either with decent sound or no
chattering, smartphone diddling idiots with no luck.

This is really one of those rare bands I like a *lot* more on record versus
live. If I do bother to see them again, it will definitely be in LA despite
the extra drive time, not the OC.

Here's a couple clips from a guy that was standing right next to me when I
was down on the floor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UPEI4OeEBdA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UshLNK9_3gE

T.B.