Although it was their first time in Bean town, the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets couldn’t have looked more at home. With a sold out show at the Great Scott under their belt and some new fans no doubt, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them come back in a years time.
Opening the show last Sunday was the wicked local Berklee psych rock band, Lucid Lynx. Sadly they went on earlier than the event start time, 9:15, so I wasn’t able to catch their set. Having seen them before though, I can guarantee it was an energetic one!
Second in line was California locals, Meatbodies. I’d been itching to catch these guys for quite some time now and I wasn’t disappointed. The beginning of their set started off quite comically. As lead singer and guitarist Chad Obovich started off their first song, his high E string broke immediately. After some back and forth with their roadie, he had a new guitar and Meatbodies blasted into their set. Their sound is loud, fuzzy, melodic, and unforgiving. You could tell they had some fans in the audience cause the minute they started playing, people were already throwing each other across the dance floor. Their music really takes you over but none of the members seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage which I thought was especially weird considering almost the entire audience was extremely into it.
Now for the moment the audience had been waiting for. Whether they were hiding in the crowd or in their tour van I hadn’t spotted them until they took the stage, but when they did, the crowd went nuts. With a simple “Hello” they launched into their first song. The entire show, their presence onstage was captivating; grinning and head banging any time they weren’t on the mic. The reaction from the audience was not as immediate as it was for Meatbodies but I’m thinking there may have a been a bigger draw for them, hence why they got them as the opener for their US tour. But soon enough they gained a room full of fans and they were once again bounding around the floor. The Crumpets didn’t get to any of their new stuff till several songs in and kicked it off with “Hymn For A Droid” followed by “Bill’s Mandolin”. the crowd screamed the words they knew and I think the band was pretty happy their new tunes were going over so well. The banter onstage was hilarious and really showed off their ability to keep the audiences attention in between songs. They talked about their brand new 5th member who was on keys and guitar as well as their origin story (a tale of taking shrooms and having the genius idea to start a psych rock band; a familiar story in the world of psych music i’m realizing). after playing “Keen For Kick Ons?” they walked off stage only to be cheered back on; finishing the set with their most popular tune “Cornflake”.
All in all I was pretty impressed with the show. Definitely an attention grabber and not one that gets boring after awhile. Their songs are filled with wild riffs and melodies that don’t clash or sound the same. Like I said in my top 10 albums of the summer post, their new album, “And Now For The Watchamacallit”, is a great listen and I urge everyone to give it a try. Another thing I said in the post is that I swear were in the Australian invasion. It started with Jet and The Vines and it’s continuing with Courtney Barnett, Tame Impala, and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets.