Motorpsycho @ Rockefeller, Oslo, March 14, 2014

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   Just wanted to share with you my thoughts on Friday night's concert with what is probably my favourite band ATM, the start of their 2014 Behind The Sun Tour, in support of their new album.

Setlist :

Acoustic set:

- With Trixeene Through the Mirror, I Dream with Open Eyes

- Blueberry Daydream

- Coventry Boy

- Stay Young

- Big Surprise

- Now It's Time To Skate

- Feel

- Waiting for the One

Electric set:

- Kvæstor

- On a Plate

- The Promise

- Hey Jane

- Hyena

- Barleycorn

- Plan #1

- Hell, part 1-7

--

- Kill Some Day

- Starmelt/Lovelight

- Wearing Yr Smell

- Entropy

The concert started with three of the intergalactic Four Norsemen of the Rock/Avant entering the stage, acoustic guitars in hand, and the fourth, Kenneth Kapstad, seating himself down behind his drum set, turning to a small keyboard on his left side. "We thought we'd do something a bit different tonight, opening with the encores", said bassist Bent Sæther with a smirk, and then we were off on a stripped down journey back in time to, mostly, the '90's.

This typifies what I admire most about this band, perhaps even more so than the music itself , that they do what they want to do, plays what they want to play (both live and in studio), and don't occupy themselves with keeping up with trends, nevermind what critics and fans think or say.

Another thing I admire them for is that they seem very down to earth, and don't act like rock stars (which they aren't really anyway, to my big bewilderment as to why not? , my impression is that even in Norway they're still sort of an underground band, a hidden secret, known only to some and not to "everyone", 25 years after their formation).

An example of this "down to earth"-attitude was displayed when Sæther announced what was the highlight of the acoustic set for me, the cover of Gallagher & Lyle's "Stay Young", with saying "We even played this on the telly recently". Imagine Roar Øien, on pedal steel guitar in this video, replaced by Reine Fiske on guitar, and you get a sense of how the performance of that song looked and sounded like Friday night.

Other highlights of the acoustic set were the crowd singing "ba-ba-pa-pa-ria" (or something to that effect ) along with the band during the only song from their jazz-pop period in the early 2000's they played this evening, "Big Surprise", Bent ballerina-twirling after the line "Dancing around like a ballerina!" in "Now It's Time To Skate" (you just gotta love these guys for never taking themselves too seriously ), and the sing along song "Waiting for the One".

Those of us who was surprised by the opening and eagerly awaited hearing the tracks from the new album live for the first time was soon to be pleased though. The electric set opened with "Kvæstor", "On a Plate" and "The Promise", all from their 2014 release Behind The Sun, the latter of the three being the most impressive, with Sæther in good form on vocals.

This was followed by one of my favourite tracks of theirs from the 90's, "Hey Jane", from their great psych rock album Trus Us, "Hyena", from Black Hole / Blank Canvas, and what was the definitive highlight of the concert for me, "Barleycorn", off their 2013 release, Still Life With Eggplant. At the beginning of this song I'd just come back from getting a beer, and had to stand behind two really tall guys , so I didn't get to see who was singing, and the voices of the band's two vocalists are too similar sounding for me to be 100% sure who sang it , but I think it was the guitarist, Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan, who, it seemed to me, had some problems with his voice all evening. So, the vocals on this wasn't too good, but Snah's groovy guitar jam was simply out of this world - I for one was spiritually "somewhere else" during that jam.

Next up was the post rock-ish "Plan #1", from Demon Box. A nice track, but I've never felt anything special for this particular song. They guy standing next to me, however, clearly had a special relationship to it. Hearing him say, almost in disbelief, "My song, they're playing my song!", his eyes watering up while his mates clapped him on the back clearly excited for him, made an impression on me, who only recently became a fan of the band, and have not grown up listening to them. Really great to see a song I've never thought of as anywhere near the band's best having such an impact on someone.

Following this emotional experience came another highlight, the full "Hell" suite from their last two albums, all seven parts (or perhaps it's not complete yet, and we'll get another two parts on another album sometime in the near future, getting the number of parts up to nine, one for every circle of hell? we can only speculate). Although I'm not a big fan of pt. 4-6, it was nice hearing them all together, including another brilliant jam by Snah, at the end of part 3.

After that we got some more "oldies" from the 90's in "Kill Some Day", "Starmelt / Lovelight" and the indie-punk-ish "Wearing Yr Smell", the latter two getting the crowd in sing-along-mood once again, before the concert was concluded with "Entropy", from the new album. I'm not a big fan of this one either, but it worked well enough as a gig closer.

The sound this evening wasn't as good as their concert at the same venue last year, but it wasn't bad. I would've liked to hear more from the new album, especially the nice opener, "Cloudwalker", which apparently was on the setlist, but got dropped for some reason, but with these guys you never know what songs you're gonna hear at a show, which is part of the fun, and, I had a great time anyway.

I highly recommend seeing Motorpsycho if you have the chance (tour dates to be found here), even if you, like me, aren't crazy about the new album, and if you don't mind them playing what the hell they want! 

Sail on, Psychonauts!

Edited by The Bearded Bard - March 17 2014 at 11:53