Comets On Fire

How does one stop the rock, when the rock’s sole intention is to come screaming down from the stars, tear your head off and shit asteroids (comets?) down your neck? How in the name of all that’s holy on this, God’s green and pleasant Earth, does a band exist only to rattle its audience’s remaining brain cells into a Cup-A-Soup-like powder, only to be reactivated under saturation of beer? How, I ask you, how?

One doesn’t. One sits there and takes it like the man one is. One takes it until one’s senses overload and one’s eyes no longer see what’s in front of them, instead seeing nothing but multi-coloured, acid-trip haze straight out of 1975. One nods incessantly, like the nodding dog on the parcel shelf of one’s quaint hatchback. One forgets how to resist entirely. Be you here, now, then one is you, and you’re loving every second of it.

Y’see, explaining Comets On Fire isn’t half as much fun as explaining – or rather trying to explain – the sensory effects of seeing them in the flesh. Five cosmic rockers from the west coast of the wild land beyond the sea manhandling their equipment into some rough approximation of Pink Floyd-meets-Led Zeppelin psychedelic terror isn’t something you see every day, for sure, but the mere sight of them alone tells but half the tale. To feel this is to feel alive, to feel that tingling sensation that runs from the base of the spine to the very tips of each and every finger. This isn’t a band and this isn’t a concert hall – this is a sermon in the ways of the rock and this expansive arena is no more than a futuristic church (check the boxes!). These seats, pews; under them there must be a guide to it all…

Nope, nothing here about the hows and whys of opening a rock show with a song - ‘Antlers Of The Midnight Sun’ - that’s about big enough to tear your earholes right down to your chin. That’s how big they’ll need to be before anyone really ‘gets’ this. My ears are tiny, so I might as well give it up now…

The one thing I learn from the experience: to keep my hair long. Goddamn, those boys look cool as fuck up there. Plus, it’s a lot harder to yank off a head when your hair’s all knotted up with your clothes. Isn't it?