Back in
July RTM stumbled across a record by a band called Monster Truck. “Furiosity”
it was called and it was just one of those things the musical obsessive finds
every now and again. You don’t hold out much hope for it, then you stick it on.
The album
is beyond stunning, it rivals Clutch’s “Earth Rocker” as the album of the year
so far – apt really because essentially they are what Neil Fallon’s boys would
sound like if they had a Hammond organ. Truck are making waves in their native
Canada, where their “Old Lion” single is number one and the album sits at 13 in
the Billboard charts. And if nothing else it proves just how far we lag behind
our friends from overseas in the taste stakes.
It was,
therefore, with a genuine frisson of excitement that we saw that the Monster
boys were opening for Vista Chino. So while there are 500 people crammed in
here tonight dewy eyed over the return of what is effectively Kyuss, we are
ready to anoint what is genuinely our new favourite band around here.
And by god,
they do not disappoint us. Singer and bass man Jon Harvey stands in the middle
of the stage belting out the songs, while guitarist Jeremy Widerman does his
best Janick Gers impression, twirling round like a lunatic. For 40 minutes they
keep us transfixed and if you have heard the record you know why, whether it is
“Old Train,” “Boogie” or “Undercover Love” they all sound absolutely
magnificent, while closer “Call It A Spade” is so good that you forgive them
for not playing our favourite song “Sweet Mountain River.” The Truck are
monstrously good, get on board and tell them we sent you.
After that,
to be frank, we could have gone home and been perfectly happy with our lives,
but Vista Chino are a pretty exciting proposition in their own right. They had
better be because there is an inordinate wait before they take the stage.
Half of the
men on stage are staples from Kyuss, one of the most critically acclaimed stoner
rock bands of all time. They briefly returned as Kyuss lives, before that dissolved
into a lot of lawsuits and rancor. So John Garcia and Brant Bjork regrouped,
released the “Peace” album as Vista Chino and have added Corrosion Of
Conformity bass genius Mike Dean for this jaunt. Not that you would recognise
Dean given since we last saw him, last year at Bloodstock, he has grown a
magnificent perm.
The set is
heavy on Kyuss numbers as you would expect, but they do kick off with “Adara”
from their own record. It is riff heavy, of course and Bruno Fevery’s guitar
work is to the fore throughout, but we are soon into the band that made them
all famous, with “One Inch Man” rampaging out of the speakers.
John Garcia
is not a particularly outgoing frontman, indeed he seems content to wrestle
with his mic stand throughout, and all is going swimmingly until they lose
guitar around half way in. For a band that needs its riffs as much as Chino,
this is a bit of a blow and they do lose a little momentum, which never quite
returns as the second half of things is punctured by some lengthy jams. The
encore of “Planets 1 & 2” brings us back to Chino, but Kyuss finish us off
with “Whitewater” and “Odyssey” and the set is brought to a rattling
conclusion.
In the
context of our world, though, Vista Chino were just a bonus – as far as we were
concerned they were here to support Monster Truc
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