Love and Rockets
with The Dandy Warhols at the Paradise
by J. Lianna Ness & Jenn Garland
photo by Elizabeth Mullaney
The arrival of a lunar eclipse earlier in the evening marked the perfect beginning for a musical odyssey.
A mesmerizing set filled with crisp, delayed distortion and songwriting that’s both thorough and powerful. So totally immersed in their drowning molasses of guitar feedback, The Dandy Warhols (Tim/Kerr) seemed almost oblivious to the audience. This is music you don’t just hear, you experience. “It sounds like the end of a great orgasm,” my sidekick commented. The trippy set was only enhanced by the antihistamines I ingested prior to the show.
From a blinding flash of white light, Love and Rockets (American) burst into “Ball of Confusion.” The band comes across even better live, an aural overload of loud buzzing wah-wah guitar effects. Their cover of David Essex’s “Rock On” fluctuated between simple a capella verses and the boisterous chorus, so indigenous to the familiar Love and Rockets sonic-psychedelia. They played a mix of old and new songs: favorites “Kundalini Express,” from Express, and “No New Tale To Tell” from Earth Sun Moon, as well as “Fever,” and “Sweet Lover Hangover,” from their latest release, Sweet F.A.. Our only criticism – at times, it sounds like they’ve been listening to too many Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and ZZ Top albums. Otherwise, Love and Rockets are a band you appreciate even more after seeing them live.
