Re-Viewed: Brian Jonestown Massacre

By Julene McCoy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 15, 2005 6:17PM

It's a fine line between genius and insanity and that is precisely where Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre lives and plays. Last night at the Metro the first words out of Anton's mouth were that he had a new tattoo and wasn't going to talk a lot. That promise was clearly broken as the rants flowed freely throughout the evening.

BJM's 60's era psychedelic jams seem to go on forever and meld into one another creating a soundscape. Due to this, the band didn't really play many songs during their nearly 2 hour set. Highlights from the performance included "Servo" and "Swallowtail". Servo's downward chord progression ending the song is pure 60s bliss. BJM began Swallowtail with only 4 minutes left to play according to the Metro staff, but they stretched the song out for at least another 20 minutes while the bouncers became more and more tense wondering if the band would ever step off stage and end the show.

The main draw to any Brian Jonestown Massacre show is to see what Anton will do. He detests how he was portrayed in the documentary Dig!, yet he still acts up in the same ways now. Some of the more choice comments that escaped Anton's lips last night had to do with the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. Such as this winner, "I hope my tax dollars aren't going to kill darkies (in New Orleans) because that will start a war." He'll never be a politician. The diatribes between songs mainly consisted of Anton wanting to f*#k up members of the audience who were taunting him, ordering more drinks, or asking for weed.

Overall the show had great 60s psychedelica when music was actually played and the rantings of a madman when the music stopped. Quite the spectacle and well worth the $12.