Aug/090
Deerhunter 8/27/2009 @ Eagle Rock Center for the Arts
This was sort of last minute, and it was absolutely riotous.
The kickoff to a film festival honoring bikes, Deerhunter took the stage in a venue unlike most I’ve been to. A long narrow hall with columns flanking the crowd proved an intimate setting, and Deerhunter maximized the space with their far reaching, far out sounds. They jammed through their set with a relaxed ease belying the frantic, often jangled collage of distorted sounds. They rocked so hard at one point that the power supplying the makeshift stage went out and there was a brief interruption. When the festivities resumed, front-man Bradford Cox jibed “Okay that was our FIRST set. Round two is all Grateful Dead covers!”
Jokes aside, they meant business, and played a flowing set. The most unique moment, however, was the post-encore sound collage which lasted about 15 minutes on its own. With the trailing sounds of the encore song ending, Deerhunter (led by Cox) began to manipulate the feedback with their impressive array of distortion and effects pedals into a long, coked out tapestry of sound that left a major part of the crowd confused/irritated/and quite frankly lost. Some left, and those who did missed out on a harmonic explosion… A bittersweet symphony of fuzzed out, drone-tastic feedback sounds that actually ended up sounding totally coherent, if not a bit loud.
The spontaneous nature of the outing really made it worthwhile for me. I had only decided to go like 2 days before the show, and it ended up being a great night!