Meanwhile, Action!
Mar. 13th, 2004 01:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermarama(If I stop and think about it, I'd only met Travis once, and that evening in my memory is full of meeting Tina for the first time and strange goings-on at Elephant and Castle station, and this was more than a year ago; given which the ease of recognition, both ways, is warming.)
Action: Rocktron the giant silver amp dominates the stage, topped by a wildly swinging tuner, taller than Travis himself. Drum machines, keyboards, boxes of tricks array the floor in front. Kneeling by them, keys begin to resonate and stutter and the continuous chain of keening, word-crossing vocals begins. A high-voltage throw-switch feel when the drums come in, simple programmed repetitive but the loops are not a drummer's, they cross beats, they break down, and it makes them far more part of the whole. Delay loops and continuous vocal line distortion, by electronics and by warping notes, rising from the floor and heading for a bass guitar. Roars and sharp chops and twistings on lead bass, little in the way of tonality other than against, across the decently meaningless programmed line. Falling stands and tangling cables made into part of the movement, the studied impression of being about to fling or smash a guitar while only moving violently around it, balancing the bass across his back while kneeling shouting about steak straight into a unit. Any space not filled with violent guitar or wriggling synth is game for the spinning screaming vocals, and with little else on stage they cut through even too far out for amplification. A tolerably tenuous chaos, a moment or two where all the plates are dropped and the conjuror just has to grin and bear it, but soon recovered. Momentum comes from the small changes in a simple repertoire, given out with intent and intensity, easily filling the Frebutt's stage, with plenty left over for those watching. No time between songs, no songs to pick out, for every time the drums stop there must be wailing through the octaves, no matter what it comes out to look like at the other. By the end the mike is on the floor and Travis crouches, sprawls with it to play the last of the aggressive riffs and to wail the last of the piercing vocals... Hard to call it musical as in pitch, but musical by rhythm, idea moving from place to place, beat shifting around, these things are the true dynamite and this is here.
Action: Rocktron the giant silver amp dominates the stage, topped by a wildly swinging tuner, taller than Travis himself. Drum machines, keyboards, boxes of tricks array the floor in front. Kneeling by them, keys begin to resonate and stutter and the continuous chain of keening, word-crossing vocals begins. A high-voltage throw-switch feel when the drums come in, simple programmed repetitive but the loops are not a drummer's, they cross beats, they break down, and it makes them far more part of the whole. Delay loops and continuous vocal line distortion, by electronics and by warping notes, rising from the floor and heading for a bass guitar. Roars and sharp chops and twistings on lead bass, little in the way of tonality other than against, across the decently meaningless programmed line. Falling stands and tangling cables made into part of the movement, the studied impression of being about to fling or smash a guitar while only moving violently around it, balancing the bass across his back while kneeling shouting about steak straight into a unit. Any space not filled with violent guitar or wriggling synth is game for the spinning screaming vocals, and with little else on stage they cut through even too far out for amplification. A tolerably tenuous chaos, a moment or two where all the plates are dropped and the conjuror just has to grin and bear it, but soon recovered. Momentum comes from the small changes in a simple repertoire, given out with intent and intensity, easily filling the Frebutt's stage, with plenty left over for those watching. No time between songs, no songs to pick out, for every time the drums stop there must be wailing through the octaves, no matter what it comes out to look like at the other. By the end the mike is on the floor and Travis crouches, sprawls with it to play the last of the aggressive riffs and to wail the last of the piercing vocals... Hard to call it musical as in pitch, but musical by rhythm, idea moving from place to place, beat shifting around, these things are the true dynamite and this is here.