- Venue:
- ICA, London »
- Artists:
- Lightning Bolt »
Lightning Bolt are a bass and drums duo that sound like Sabbath. Sped up. And played down a drain. Last year's excellent 'Wonderful Rainbow' LP was a blistering mix of chugging, sludgy riffs and breakneck hardcore - made accessible by surprisingly melodic passages. It is, however, their ferocious live show that has earned Lightning Bolt their legion of fans.
You see, Lightning Bolt don't play to the audience - they play IN the audience. Drummer Brian Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson unleash their furious noise from the centre of the crowd itself. And towering over them is the tallest, widest, LOUDEST Marshall stack this side of a Darkness video. The ethos of bringing the noise to the people is key with this band and the lack of that traditional boundary between performer and audience creates one of the most astonishing live shows around.
Aside from the deafening volume, it's the physicality of the experience that is most striking about a Lightning Bolt gig. The crowd writhes and surges around the band, becoming a living, breathing extension of their songs. The energy the duo generate is transferred straight into the audience - overcoming the usual indie/art reticence. Have you ever seen people trying to crowd surf at the ICA?
Chippendale* attacks his drum kit in a frenzied fashion, yelling into a strange ski-mask/mic contraption that accounts for the screeching, hyper-distorted vocals, while Gibson* thrashes out tough, brutal basslines. Songs like 'Assassins' and 'Dracula Mountain' which are fearsome enough coming out of your crappy old boombox, become three-dimensional live.
By the end, people were screaming for the pure hell of it - speaking in tongues, complete with dead, fiery eyes. A brilliantly, beautifully violent affair, leaving the crowd with soaking t-shirts and the smiles of fifteen year olds smeared across their damp faces. Awesome.
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Lightning Bolt
They strike me as pointlessly arty. The amp they were using was much quieter then the sound sytem on stage so you could barely here them.
Also unless your 6'6" you can't see anything. Seeing as I'm nearly a foot shorter then that I saw fuck all.
Re: Lightning Bolt
(I'd say yous had a point if people griped about the room/corner they played in on week 1, but people seemed to ignore that matter and go straight for the band....whatever)
I noticed Miranda's post on here too about the LB ATP set - hope that somewhat calms this endless whingey stream of "oh I'm not 6 foot I couldn't see anything whinge sulk" LB set reports since the other weekend/s --Look, bar the front handful it was the case however tall you were, deal with it! I'm 6 foot fucking four and was right up towards the front, and *still* i didn't see a fucking THING! (bar crowdsurfers' boots as they headed obliviously towards flattening the drumkit/my head).
And it was absolutely unbelievable, regardless..
Whatever - if you can't beat em join em i guess: all we ever saw during mogwai was loads of smoke and lights and no bald Glaswegian Boobah-looking fella whatsoever (people's pills didn't kick in til cex so it wasn't that) - Dear Mr Hogan, where's my refund etc etc ZZZzzzzzzzz
Re: Lightning Bolt
Just me?
Cock.
Stu was then stood beside me during Kid 606. I saw his shiny bald heeeeeeeed - it's like the top of St Pauls.
LB at ATP were silly fun - I laughed and danced and sweated and then sat down and drank. WEEEEE!

Lightning Bolt
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