Noise Road

Not in Rivers, but in Drops…

Or

Moody vs Isis at Trix, Antwerp, Belgium.

5/12/09

This gig is what this blog is all about – capturing the experience of seeing awesome bands in exotic places.  Now I don’t where you’re from, but for a boy from Adelaide, Antwerp is pretty exotic.  It’s not exactly a weekend getaway from Australia…  And there is no doubt in my mind that Isis is an awesome band…. 

I didn’t know much about Antwerp going into the weekend.   I’ve never been to Belgium before.  I knew that Belgium had ridiculously strong beer from an unfortunate birthday back home at the Bar on Gouger St.  That night, we worked our way down from most alcoholic beers on their extensive menu.  Unfortunately the night kicked off with us doing 4 rounds of 12% Belgian beers and drinking them like they were the more standard Australian 4.5% variety.  Subsequently I behaved so poorly that I didn’t feel comfortable showing my face back at that bar for 12 months. 

But apart from that, I was flying blind on Belgium…  Jean Claude Van-Damme?…  I got nothing.

Did you know that mussels are a speciality in Belgium?… The Muscles/Mussels from Brussels works on multiple levels, dude.  Just like Jean-Claude works on multiple levels… well maybe not.

The first impressions of Antwerp weren’t awesome.  An Air France prop across the water from London.  And no way to get to the city from the airport except for a lone taxi, complete with an ultra racist driver. 

But luckily the first impression was wrong.  It’s a cool town with lots of contrasts.  A beautiful old centre on the river, big crazy @rse cathedrals containing works of a major artist.  The largest orthodox Jewish quarter in Europe….  This is contrasted with a seedy, seedy red light district that I stumbled onto, on my way back to the hotel.  Sure Moods.  You stumbled on it.  Right.

I learnt from my experiences on Gouger St, and took it slow on the Belgian beers. De Konnick is the local brew.  But all the Belgian beers were good… and strong. 

I also had great food during my stay – mussels (because of the whole JCVD epiphany) and waffles.  But I think I did hit a misfire with the local culinary delights.  Look, it may not have been the Flemish stew that led to later stomach pressure issues at the Isis gig.  I have had stomach issues post long-haul flight before.   I’m sure no wants to hear again about my stomach’s violent oscillations between chronic constipation and explosive diarrhea in North-West Spain last May.

Anyway by the time I finished my first beer at the Isis gig, I was wondering if there was nothing but phlegm in my Flemish stew.  My guts were in rough shape.  I bought 5 tokens for beers for the evening.  But because of the guts situation I could only use two.  And there’s no refunding those suckers.  They were hard enough to get in the first place with the language barrier.  There’s a lot of English language in Belgium – just not with this bartender.  The fault is of course on my side.  I’m a visitor in their country – and I had insufficient Flemish to get what I wanted.  However, I can tell you that I definitely had sufficient Flemish in my guts. 

So I walked the kebab mile from my hotel to the venue.  Seriously I’ve never seen a higher density of kebab shops in the world.  That being said I haven’t been to any Arab countries – but they’ve now got something to live up to.

The Trix looks like a newish venue.  After seeing the spectacular Hammersmith a couple of days before, in comparison the Trix is a performance space rather than a theatre.  It’s a mid-size venue bigger than Fowler’s in Adelaide – but with a smaller capacity than somewhere like HQ . 

I’m always interested to see differences in crowds for bands from country to country.  You know the crowd for a Napalm Death gig in Japan is a lot different from a Napalm Death crowd in the UK.  But I think a crowd for an Isis gig is probably the same anywhere in the western world.  Isis fans straddle the line between alterno’s and stoner metal dudes.  Lots of Mastodon, Neurosis and Converge t-shirts.  Lots and lots of beards.

Moods, let’s get on to it, already….

Moody vs Keelhaul

Keelhaul opened up proceedings.  Keelhaul ain’t gonna win any beauty contests, but man do they bring the riffs.

A lazy man would lump them in the huge pile of stoner.  So I guess that I’m a lazy man.  A lot of their set was in that early Mastodon / High on Fire riff-heavy, stoner metal area.  They had a bit of the more straight-up Melvins stuff circa Houdini going on too.  More than half of the set was instrumental.  And despite the riff onslaught there was room for variety – one number even had somewhat of a country tinge.

I enjoyed the set…  and so did the Belgian beardo’s.

Moody vs Circle

Describing Circle’s set is no easy feat.  It was a pretty unique show, bordering on performance art.  The keyboardist appearance alone was a piece of performance art – with his fisherman’s hat, moustache and leather pants.

Cirlce started in a repetitive psychedelic mode – music to trance out to…   To my surprise, the Belgian Beardo’s weren’t onboard for it.  I would have thought that an Isis crowd would have been up for something like that, but a good section of the crowd returned to the bar.  It was a Saturday night, I guess.  Drinks need to be drunk – probably even more so when it’s tasty Belgian beer.

The Circle set then morphed into keyboard-heavy symphonic metal.  Growly vocals were supplied by the bass player, followed by operatic/gypsy-ish vocals from the keyboard player.  I assume he was singing in Finnish – I haven’t really kept up with my Finnish lessons lately.

The backbone of the performance was the drummer and the guitarist.  They were the straight men of the piece. The drummer in particular was impressive – displaying how much energy you can output from a small kit.

The set then took another change.  Things got a little weird.

Whilst the guitarist and drummer kept plugging away, the bass player ceremonially play-beheaded the keyboardist with his bass…. But then the power of building psychedelic music brought him back to life…. From this point on, rejuvenated by the music the moustached keyboardist proceeded to do a series of tai chi poses.  The band continued to build, and the keyboardist poses became more and more severe.

I don’t know what their records are like, but I would jump at the chance to see that show again.  It was pretty different, dude.

Moody vs Isis

I’ve been a big Isis fan since Oceanic was released.  I liked the following 2 releases, Panopticon and In Absence of Truth – but I don’t think they were quite as strong.  There are points in In Absence where they almost seem to stall in the long ambient/quieter passages – like they’ve noodled off to far away.

Their latest, Wavering Radiant (WR), in comparison has a forward momentum throughout the album – a groove.  I think it’s their most consistent to date.  Perhaps the biggest evolution is in Aaron Turner’s voice.  We all know the dude can roar like a lion, but in the quieter passages his singing has traditionally been low in the mix.  On WR, his voice is far more upfront.  His melodic singing sounds a lot stronger.

I saw Isis 4 times on the tour cycle for In Absence.  The sets then, whilst In Absence heavy, featured tracks from the all the previous 3 albums.  There are a couple of crushing songs from Oceanic that always got the crowd going.

So keeping that in mind, I was expecting a set that was WR heavy, but that featured the strongest tracks off Oceanic and In Absence.  And I was excited at that prospect.  They’ve got such a wealth of material now – how could it not be an awesome set?  But it definitely wasn’t a best off set.

They played nearly all, if not the entirety of WR.  There were approximately 3 non WR songs.  The highlight of the non WR material being Holy Tears.  So the only disappointment for me for the evening was that I would have loved to hear some Oceanic in the set.  But I guess they’ve got bored of playing those tracks every night for 5 years.

Even sans Oceanic, this was the strongest that I’ve seen Isis.  And I think the reason is the difference in material.  Like on the album, Aaron Turner’s singing voice is far higher in the mix and there is far more of it during the set.  Those vocals on the album aren’t studio trickery – his melodic voice is good.  I don’t know if it is a confidence thing, or if it is something that he has been working on – but it definitely adds to the Isis dynamic.

As always the Isis’ tracks build and build, until the Aaron Turner is roaring like a lion on the microphone with a wall of sound behind him.  The added vocal melody in the quieter/ambient passages as the song builds, adds to pay-off when the band finally does let loose.  You can see it in the crowd – slight head nodding becomes a full body swing.

Isis gets shyte from a lot of metal fans for being “too boring”.  And many alternative fans aren’t willing to get onboard because the vocals in the heavy passages are too harsh…  But I think if anyone still sitting on the fence sees Isis in this cycle, they will be converted.  The material is the strongest yet and the band is one at the peak of its powers.

But I haven’t got time to be hacking away at these words.  Nor do I have time be sitting in a hotel toilet in Antwerp, exorcising these Flemish stomach demons.  I’ve got a reformed Alice in Chains gig at the Brixton Academy to get to back in London….