Words and photos by Brendan

Recipe: Scrumptious Psychedelic Rock Concert.
Ingredients: 1 smoke machine, 1 trippy optical illusion wall hanging, 1 old converted church-cum-concert venue, 2 awesome bands.
Directions: For appetizer Suuns, sauté trippy guitar lines and entrancing drums and synths for 30 minutes on medium heat; turn to high intermittently, adding a dash of vocals to taste. For main course The Black Angels, simmer rich guitar and bass tones in a base of pounding drum broth; stir in echoey vocals and sprinkle with drone machine. Garnish with heavy smoke and strobe lights. Serve loud for best results.

The Black Angels / Bad Vibrations
The Black Angels / Young Men Dead
The Black Angels / Telephone
Suuns / Up Past The Nursery

If I may borrow an already-borrowed phrase, I’d like to quote the genius behind Pitchfork Reviews Reviews for a perfect five-word description of this show: “sumptuous slab of psychedelic joy”. If I may not borrow that phrase, then I’m afraid I’m at a loss for words to describe the sonic orgasm my ears and brain experienced at this concert. Okay, those were words. I’m not at a total loss. But seriously, “sumptuous slabs” of psychedelia were all up in the air at Mr. Small’s that night.

I was pretty much unfamiliar with Suuns beforehand, having only heard one three-and-a-half-minute single of theirs (“Up Past The Nursery”) and being surprised by how to pronounce their name (I assumed it was like drawing out the word suns into suh-uhns, but turns out it’s more like soons). The quick description that I jotted down on my phone during their set was “psychedelic dance rock”, which still makes some sense in retrospect, but the “dance” aspect was a bit lost on the particular crowd present that evening. Don’t think that I’m pointing out flaws, mind you; myself, I was able to do little more than lean forward with my elbows on the waist-high divider wall in the middle of the room, staring vacantly-yet-attentively at the stage and letting the guitars and synths and drums quite literally envelop my personal space with soundwaves. There was no compulsion to move my body around, and even if there were any, my mind was too intent on watching the drummer practically run in place on his stool and eyeing the guitarist make love to his strings with his fingers to be able to flail my arms and flop around. There was just too much to look at while not really looking at anything at all, you know what I mean? Well, I get the feeling that everyone else at the venue that night knows what I’m talking about, because they seemed to be doing exactly what I was doing. Or then again, maybe I was too entranced to notice anyone else … In any event, there were vocals on some songs, which a friend of mine pointed out as a downside, and maybe that would be borne out on record but, in the live setting, I honestly thought they made for a unique aural component; I could not tell at all what the words were, but the vocalist’s voice felt as much like an integral instrument of the band as, say, the synthesizer did. All told, this was one of the better sets I’ve seen by an opening band in quite some time.

The Black Angels reverberated the heavy vibrations already present in the high-ceilinged room and left us practically bowing at the altar of their brand of gloom-and-doom psychedelia-tinged pop-rock. I’ve been a fan of this band for a few years since stumbling upon their debut LP, Passover, on eMusic, but I finally saw them live for the first time last fall (that concert review was my first post for this very website, in fact; how ’bout that?). It was a great performance that left me in awe of the band members’ talents but, meanwhile, the venue left me wanting to see them elsewhere where they could really let their sound hang loose and raw. (That’s not gross, I swear.) Lo and fucking behold! The rock gods bestowed upon Pittsburgh a Black Angels show at the venerable Mr. Small’s Theatre in ye olde towne of Millvale. No better place exists in this world for this band to play. Okay, I’m sure there’s some crazy tiny village in the south of France or whatever where there’s a graveyard with tombstones dating back to the 9th century with two large hillocks framing the entranceway creating perfect acoustics for this style of music, but … hey, we’re in Pittsburgh, and Mr. Small’s rocks.

My friends and I stayed in the dead-center of the room for the entirety of their set. Having seen the band up close and personal before, I wasn’t dead-set on standing at the front of the stage, so we hung back to get a better sonic experience. Luckily, we showed up fairly early, so the front row of the 21+ section had a few leaning locations available; I’ve never been able to snag those spots at a Mr. Small’s show so I was both ecstatic at the opportunity and kinda surprised/disappointed at the sparsity of the crowd at that point in the night. No worries, though; both halves of the room filled up in due time and though our view was eventually slightly obscured by the tops of heads (and the billowing haze from the band’s smoke machines) the sound was absolutely amazing the whole way through. Where Diesel failed, Mr. Small’s succeeded, and then some. Guitarist Christian Bland’s tones are so rich and heavy that they’re just begging to echo off the dampers hanging high on the stained glass windows of this former house of worship, and singer Alex Maas’ vocals are fed through just the right amount of reverb to have their impressively emotive effects amplified by the venue’s acoustics. Meanwhile, drummer Stephanie Bailey was somewhat hidden at the back of the stage, shrouded in a thick layer of smog, but her beats shone through, unrepentant and demanding as ever. I love that. Multi-instrumentalists Nate Ryan and Kyle Hunt swapped guitar and bass and percussion and keyboards and all manner of such things, rounding out an amazing wall of sound coming from the stage. I tried to take some photos of the band in action, but my moderate distance combined with the swaths of smoke made for the impossibility of photo ops. You’ll have to settle for the shot you see above of an empty stage with a b&w backdrop (that actually matches the cover art of The Black Angels‘ Record Store Day exclusive release, the Phosgene Nightmare EP). No matter, though; the blurry and dim pics I managed to “get” only add to my “memories” of reverb-heavy psych-rock and everything else that The Black Angels stand for. Here’s hoping that they grace us with their presence again sometime soon.

The Black Angels setlist:
“The Sniper At The Gates Of Heaven”
“The Sniper”
“Haunting At 1300 McKinley”
“Better Off Alone”
“Yellow Elevator #2″ → “Black Grease”
“True Believers”
“Entrance Song”
“You On The Run”
“Young Men Dead”
“Telephone”
“Bad Vibrations”
—encore—
Unknown [Alex Maas solo]
“Bloodhounds On My Trail”
“Phosphene Dream”

Anyone at this show should now be a true believer, better off with this band and never on the run, even with bloodhounds on the trail. Consider this show the haunting at 400 Lincoln. It deserves 5 out of 2 yellow elevators, whatever that means.

The Black Angels on the web: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Insound

Suuns on the web: Facebook, Twitter, Bandcamp, Insound

Filed under: Concert Reviews, Mind Blowing