ON TRIAL, Gas Giant, Stormbringer - Lille Vega, København, Denmark 11/8/01
From Aural Innovations #18 (January 2002)
This was a Burnt Hippie Recordings Presents night. Ralph had worked his ass off to make this a success. I showed up just before 4 for the soundcheck. On Trial were not finished yet. This was going to be my first gig playing synthesizer with Gas Giant. It was going to be cool. Our soundcheck was good but Stefan said the synth was too loud in the monitor we were sharing but for me, I could not hear anything over his guitar if it was not too loud. This was solved by putting the synth sound through all the stage monitors but a lower volume. All the soundchecks went fine and the light guys had a very cool set up going with Burnt Hippie running across the wall and great psychedelic lights on the stage and ceiling. I went home and had dinner and came back at 8:30. Stormbringer were to start at 9 sharp. By 8:45, there were only like 15 people. Where were they? Why don't they show up for some of the best bands in Copenhagen? It is like the Danish people won't go see someone they don't know and if you are a Danish band and you have not made it big outside of Denmark first, forget it. So strange this attitude. Anyway, Stormbringer came on and sounded great. They played a couple of new songs and some of the cool songs from their latest demo CD, The Fiery Furnace. They are a very cool band that remind me of a mixture of old Soundgarden and Spirit Caravan.
Their stuff was removed from the stage with great haste and Gas Giant put up their pedals and were ready to go. I had left my synth all ready as the stage was plenty big. Jesper (the singer), and his brother had made some intro music. While this was playing I started to layer in some spacey wind sounds and the band got ready and upon Tommy's cue, they ripped into Firetripper. By this time there were about 75 people, I would guess but way too few for this room that holds like 400 and needs the people. People were into it though and we were jamming. Next up, I started some freaky Alien sounds and the band went into Alien Frequency, which is an old song with some great spacey guitar. After this song I left the stage and went into the audience as the band played Grow, another old song but one that had never been played live before. It was great to see the old drummers Pete Hell and Kjeld Petersen there. Stefan played some awesome guitar as they jammed this sound out to 8 minutes. Next up was the reworking of New Day Rising, which the band had debuted last year. Now the song is totally different and instead of a laid back sound, it has a new catchy groove and all the guys do some singing. Great song. This song ended and melted into the classic All Creatures. The band really played a special version of this song and I jumped back up on the stage and played some sounds again. Great version. Wow. Storm of my Enemies was next and I played some spacey sounds again at the beginning and far out stuff during the jamming end part. This one has been totally amazing lately in the rehearsals and I was not sure if we could pull it off on the stage but it was great. Stefan started a really cool little riff at the end and we jammed on it. Awesome. The crowd dug it. We closed the set with another really old song, Moonshake. Wow. 50 minutes goes by fast.
Complete Set list: Firetripper, Alien Frequency, Grow, New Day Rising, All Creatures, Storm of my Enemies>Jam, Moonshake.
On Trial came on in just 20 minutes or so and played a cool set but there were only like 90 people and some of the band seem to not be too into it and the guitars were a little out of tune on the ballads, but they opened with Slippin' Slidin' from the new CD, Blinded due out on Delirium in Feb next year. This is a 10 minute psychedelic song that is so great. Next up was Blinded and Miles Away, also from the new CD. Two classic On Trial songs, Blood Butterfly and Sleeper were next. Now the band got really heavy with Downer. A cool new stoner rock song. Pot Of Gold and Long Time Gone got the crowd rocking out next. Next Roky Erickson showed up with Reverberation, a song they have not played live that much. Henrik's composition, SO Close So Far was next. I was surprised to hear Do You See Her?. The band closed the set with TV Eye from the Stooges which the band run directly into Starship by the MC5. That was it, 65 minutes. Stefan from Gas Giant came up on the stage amidst the feedback left by the band and started playing some spaced out stuff and the next thing you know Henrik (guitar) and Nik (bass) came up and Lars Lundholm (local studio owner and soundguy) jumped up on the drummers. Anders (guitar) and Bo would come up and a free form 10 minute ensued. No one was quite sure where it was going but it was far out. I guess since the night was a called Freak out with Burnt Hippie, this was a cool way to end the show.
The whole show was recorded on 16 tracks audio and a single video camera. We will see what it sounds like soon. The audience recordings sounded quite excellent.
Reviewed by Scott Heller