Review by Andrew Bansal, photos by Jay Valena
August 26th 2016, The Regent, Los Angeles CA: Since their ’92 inception, Japanese avant-garde group Boris have been nothing less than a phenomenon, hugely admired amongst fans and constantly winning over first-timers with every album and show. Over their 24-year history they’ve experimented with everything from dream pop to noise rock to doom metal, but unlike every other so-called experimental band, Boris have done so with such brilliance and mastery that they could very well have played any one of these particular styles for their whole career. The consistency with which they continue to change from one album to the next is unmatchable, and the captivating live performances are next to none. Every Los Angeles appearance of theirs is awaited eagerly, as was the case this summer. Performing their 2005 ‘Pink’ album in its entirety, Boris brought their headline tour with support act Earth to downtown LA for a show at the Regent last Friday August 26th, and a capacity crowd greeted their arrival.
Doors opened at 8 PM to a long queue of ticket holders already waiting to enter the Regent, and at 9 PM, sole opening act Earth took the stage. With this being just a two-band bill, Earth were given an hour to play, which was pleasantly unusual and a welcome departure from the norm. This Seattle WA based instrumental drone/doom/psych/post rock trio is led by Dylan Carlson on guitar and Adrienne Davies on drums, and usually tour with a bass player, but this time Earth came with no bassist and brought Brett Netson as second guitarist instead, presenting the same music with a different texture. The set began after Carlson made a quick, polite announcement that he has a medical condition and requested the audience to refrain from flash photography. Through nearly four decades as a band and eight studio albums, Earth have proven themselves to be masters of the art of minimalistic heaviness, specially on recent full-length efforts like ‘Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light’ (I & II) and the latest release ‘Primitive And Deadly’ (2014). As a live band, this quality is all the more evident and one can really witness the manner in which Earth make every note ring till its dying breath. Dylan Carlson has been the architect of it all with his riffs and arrangements, but watching Adrienne Davies play drums is even more of a treat. It needs to be reiterated that Davies is one of the best drummers in heavy music, because to play with such finesse and precision takes more skill and effort than hitting with brute force and speed. The song ‘Old Black’, one of Earth’s finest creations, was one of the highlights of the set, as was ‘Torn by the Fox of the Crescent Moon’ and the set-ending mid-90s gem ‘High Command’. When instrumentation is this powerful, who needs vocals? Unlike during the headliner’s performance, earplugs were not needed for Earth’s set because they weren’t as loud, and didn’t need to be. There were quite a few of their own fans in the audience, but Earth held this predominantly Boris-loving crowd captive for 60 minutes. Sometimes less is more, and in heavy music, there isn’t a better demonstration of that than Earth.
Earth set list:
01. Coda Maestoso in F (Flat) Minor
02. Even Hell Has Its Heroes
03. The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull
04. Torn by the Fox of the Crescent Moon
05. Old Black
06. High Command
Earth photos:
And at 10:30, it was time for Boris to step on stage to perform all of their 2005 ‘Pink’ album plus a few other bonus items. Boris have delved into a plethora of different styles throughout their career, and ‘Pink’ is their stoner rock album. Aside from the fact that it turned 10 last year, the prominence and popularity of this particular sub-genre in the present day as well as the band’s scheduled appearance on the stoner rock mecca Psycho Las Vegas as part of this North America summer run may well have been reasons for them to choose this album as the theme for the tour. As a trio on stage, Boris present musicianship of the volume and magnitude that supersedes the efforts of bands with many more members. Of course, all three members being multi-instrumentalists helps Boris’ cause to no end. Takeshi Ohtani plays a truly unique double-neck guitar/bass, Wata wails away on guitar and keyboards, and Atsuo Mizuno handles lead vocals and drum duties. Boris have expanded their Los Angeles fan-base tremendously in recent years and have played shows in and around town frequently, but it never gets old because it’s never the same show, and the constant evolution and progression of the trio is evident each time.
Playing albums in entirety is not a new concept these days, so the execution of the idea is more important, and sure enough, Boris were not going to be one to do it the conventional way. They played the 11 ‘Pink’ songs in an order different from the album’s track listing, and instead of starting with the opener ‘Farewell’, they closed the main set with it which made perfect sense because it sounds like a closing track, and instead opened this set with the intro-esque ‘Blackout’ and then followed it up with the lively title track, which sent the crowd into delirium straightaway as mosh pits broke out even though the Regent was more packed than it was on any of Metal Assault’s previous visits to the venue. Stage diving was also frequent, at least for the initial portion of the set. The dude moshing, crowd-surfing and stage-diving with a newly purchased vinyl in his hand was the star of the audience, and it was heart-warming to note that his vinyl survived the show unscathed. The combined effect of the lighting colors and artificial stage fog to engulf the Regent in pink was a great visual element of the set. Boris always seem to bring their best to Los Angeles, and looked and sounded like being at their absolute peak during this performance, all three members excelling in their respective roles as musicians. Atsuo punctuated the set with his typically loud shouts and exclamations as part of his lead vocal delivery and kept the audience entertained with just enough of a humor quotient that goes well with such a high-class exhibition of musicianship. Besides, he would also frequently stand up from his seat or step off the kit and onto the front of the stage, urging the crowd to be as loud as possible. While his band mates played the last few minutes of ‘Just Abandoned Myself’, he dove into the left, center and right sections of the crowd multiple times and the fans happily surfed him back to the stage each time. This song and then ‘Farewell’ were thought to be the final moments of the performance, but Boris weren’t done yet, and had a special surprise planned for their LA fans.
It took around 10 minutes to set up the additional equipment on stage, but Boris invited Earth to join them for a cover of Earth’s ‘Ouroboros is Broken’. How often do you get to see a band playing a cover with the entire band the tune belongs to? Boris have a reputation of putting on wildly unique shows but they outdid themselves with this one, and the audience watched in awe-struck silence and absorbed every note that emanated from this mind-boggling combination of two great bands. An unexpectedly stunning end to an incredible show.
Shows take place in the Los Angeles area on a daily basis and every tour comes through here, so it’s easy to forget that some bands even played, leave alone recall the date and venue they played, but no one is forgetting Boris and Earth any time soon because both bands gave Los Angeles a show to remember for a lifetime.
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Boris set list:
01. Blackout
02. Pink
03. Woman on the Screen
04. Nothing Special
05. N.F. Sorrow
06. Pseudo-Bread
07. Afterburner
08. Six, Three Times
09. Talisman
10. Electric
11. My Machine
12. Just Abandoned Myself
13. Farewell
Encore:
14. Ouroboros is Broken (Earth cover feat. Earth)
Boris photos:
