Black Mountain @ Annandale Hotel, Sydney
While Mogwai had their moments of greatness on Wednesday night, last night Black Mountain “brought da noize” for ninety solid minutes. Vancouver reprezent, yo. Playing the second night of a two night stand at the Annandale, Vancouver’s finest purveyors of dark, riff-heavy rock impressed the hell out of me.
Despite being from my hometown, I’d never seen the band before so I went in last night not really knowing what to expect. I really dig both albums so I was excited on that front but I was pretty surprised at how each member of Black Mountain independently blew me away. First up, only one guitar on every song? Crazy. But when you can play guitar like Stephen McBean I guess you really don’t need anything else. Jonny asked me to let him know how much Black Mountain “shred” last night. Oh, they shredded, Jonny, they shredded.
Everyone else in the band stood out as well. Whether it be the more prominent keyboards than I was expecting (very proggy at times) to the rhythm section (who killed it) or Amber’s ethereal vocals, every element combined perfectly in nearly every song. Opener Tyrants was absolutely monstrous and once that riff kicked in I knew it was going to a loud, raucous night.
While the bulk of last year’s excellent In The Future was played, Black Mountain still managed to bust out some highlights from their debut and a couple more obscure songs. The set never let up and when they returned for an encore of No Hits and Don’t Run Our Hearts Around the crowd went nuts. While they didn’t play Stay Free (love that one) I have absolutely nothing but praise for the band last night. They were loud, aggressive, and spot on from start to finish.
Seriously, where was this band when I was seventeen?
Setlist
Keyboard/synth intro
Tyrants
Angels
Wucan
Queens Will Play
Druganaut
Heart Of Snow
Thirteen Walls
Evil Ways
Shelter
Stormy High
———
No Hits
Don’t Run Our Hearts Around
A few photos here.
Download:
Black Mountain – Tyrants
Black Mountain – Druganaut
March 6th, 2009 17:43
Can’t help you on the ??? Sean. I have been trying to figure that one out too. It sounded like a cover, but I can’t place it.
I really enjoyed the show, btw.
March 6th, 2009 19:56
I was counting on you, Wayne! Stephen was on acoustic in an open tuning of some sort I believe. I think the song also mentioned “fiery flames,” “damage done,” and a “lake of fire.”
(And it’s not Lake of Fire or Needle and the Damage Done.)
March 7th, 2009 22:46
got it…it was Thirteen Walls.