Walking into DNA, I could tell it would be a bit of an atypical night. A curtain lined the back of the room, and when I peeked my head around to see what was going on, there were seats and tables set up. Kinda odd, but the crowd was sparse and it ended up fitting the night well.
We Got This Far was on stage- a two man group comprised of a guitarist/vocalist and a very unique bassist. He has a perma- smile and plays very differently- there was a lot of tapping the fret board instead of picking at the strings. It was pretty entertaining to watch. I quite enjoyed their music- it’s like psychedelic industrial with an injection of electronica. They were unfortunately plagued with a few technical difficulties, but as they are local I would definitely go check them out again.
This was followed by a combined performance of Cyanotic and Rabbit Junk. The whole idea of a combined performance was a bit odd to begin with. I could have done without the rabbit junk….the emo singer meets flying v sneakers wearing guitarist just didn’t do it for me. Cyanotic tries to be Ministry a bit, which is both a compliment and a complaint. At least they look the part. The pulsating beats got the crowd pretty pumped….there may have been few of them, but they slammed into each other all the same.
Before 16 Volt came on, someone was walking around trying to sell their shirts. I don’t know why, but this really bothered me. Please….keep it to the merch table.
16 Volt is very Skinny Puppy/Ministry influenced as well…Eric Powell, the man behind the band, has worked with SP’s Ogilvie in the past, and also worked on the Repo! The Genetic Opera soundtrack, which Nivek Ogre was a part of. However, I had another aesthetic complaint about the guitarist- who I realize is from KMFDM, but a trucker hat? Really???
That said, I thought their performance was pretty good, I just couldn’t get over the feeling that something was missing. Perhaps that is the problem when you sound a bit too much like your inspiration, compounded by a small audience in a big space. There was a level of excitement that felt somehow out of reach given the circumstances.
And then there was this Manson-esque signage, which I thought was weird considering I’d be seeing him the next two nights:
You can listen to an archive of the show here for a couple weeks.
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