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We show up just in time for Turkish Queen's last song, a Can cover, and I'm no fan of Beat Circus, so we have a nice stroll during their set and return to jockey for position while Sleepytime Gorilla Museum set up. They have an outrageous amount of equipment, as is their custom, so much so that they actually literally spill off the stage. (The long wooden beam with bass strings stretched on it that the bassist uses for some songs is set up on two stands, one of which is on the floor in front of the stage, so that I spend the set ducking around it and trying not to get in his way. He tunes it with C-clamps!) We are also thrilled to see the Pedal-action Wiggler make an appearance. In addition to their vast array of stuff, they have a sort of cage structure set up onstage, and there's some kind of platform projecting into the audience. This is because they are joined on this tour by a Butoh dancer, who starts out hanging from the top of the cage and eventually ventures onto the platform and into the audience. I have mixed feelings about their use of the dancer. On the one hand, this is not a band that needed another visual element. They perform in bizarre costumes and makeup, and they have a huge variety of homemade instruments that are as fascinating to watch played as to hear. Half the time I'm ignoring the dancer completely to focus on watching the musicians, and when I am watching him, I sometimes feel distracted from the concert. On the other hand, they've done a fantastic job of incorporating him into their show and writing a relationship with him into their bizarre persona. (The basic idea is that the Museum is displaying The Last Living Human Being, and there is much discussion of how to care for him, what he likes to eat, the dangers inherent in such a display, etc.) Also interesting, and perhaps related to his presence, is that we get a very different set from the last one they brought through town. Some of their most accessible (actually, let's say "least inaccessible") songs, perennial audience favorites like "Sleep Is Wrong," are missing from the setlist tonight. It's a somewhat more atmospheric, more contemplative set overall. But we do get "SPQR," the paean to the Roman Empire and an opportunity for a jab at the American Empire, and also the occasion for the use of the aforementioned Wiggler. (A bass string mounted on a bow mounted on a hi-hat stand; the pedal changes the tension on the string, for a deliciously unique sound and a damn cool visual.) It's an overwhelming show, sort of a glorious mess in effect but obviously highly planned. (Every square inch of stage, for example, is thoughtfully used.) As at previous shows, the members of the band are relaxed and chatty at their merch table afterward, which humanizes them nicely, and somewhat necessarily after their bizarre are rarified antics onstage.
