from the LP Take It From the Man, BOMP! Records, 1996Assembling eight musicians on stage is one thing, but managing to sound harmonious and relatively clean while all eight people are rocking out is just downright impressive, especially given the fact that four of them were playing guitars---dude, they have figured out the formula. Thankfully, Joel Gion and Matt Hollywood are part of the band again, front & center through the whole show, so the setlist was rather heavy on their old stuff like this song, a personal favorite of mine; any longtime fan of the BJM knows that Joel is, in fact, the soul of the band, and he was in top form last night, devastatingly wasted (I’m guessing coke because he looked like he was struggling with a nasty drip for the first five minutes or so on stage, and he was smoking cigarettes as if they were joints, functionally ashing them with the his tambourine playing) & and full of those faraway blasé looks. The music was as good as it’s ever been, majestically druggy and bombastic, chicken soup for stoned post-modern wandering souls… Brian Jones would be proud! You never know when Anton is gonna flip his shit and fire the whole band again, so I’d recommend seeing them on this tour if you get the chance, you won’t be disappointed.
