{"id":18237,"date":"2012-02-13T08:53:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T13:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=18237"},"modified":"2013-02-05T17:24:51","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T22:24:51","slug":"live-mastodon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2012\/live-mastodon\/","title":{"rendered":"LIVE! | Mastodon"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai<\/span>
\nStaff Writer —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

February 11, 2012 at Brixton Academy, London, U.K.<\/h3>\n

\"\"There couldn\u2019t have been a greater difference between the finely wrought, multi-layered sound of Mastodon\u2019s latest album and the way they sounded on the London date of their current tour. While most concert-goers know that projecting studio material live is a difficult art to master \u2013 especially if the songs are new – tonight\u2019s performance showed that Mastodon this time have found it particularly hard.<\/p>\n

To do the band justice, their muddled, edgeless soundscape on the night was to a large extent the sound engineer\u2019s doing. The front of house mix was the worst this writer has ever witnessed at the 2000-seater Brixton Academy over the past 18 years: drums to the fore, guitars and bass crammed into mid-range and sharing so many frequencies they were losing their contours and becoming indistinguishable from each other, and vocals buried deep within the jumble of this unbalanced, disproportionate mix. And it would be hard to believe that the engineer could be following anyone else\u2019s instructions and thickening up the band\u2019s sound to the point where it became such a jumble.<\/p>\n

As a result, even anthems such as \u201cBlack Tongue\u201d and \u201cAll the Heavy Lifting\u201d were projecting on the sheer power of the songwriting, but at half-strength, with riffs and grooves drowning in the mix where guitars were struggling for definition. <\/p>\n

While in the studio Mastodon\u2019s rhythm section is a formidable beast \u2013 locked in a powerful, textured, multi-layered interaction, tonight the drums and the bass seemed to exist in different dimensions. The drums were performing with their usual clockwork precision, but were excessively, unreasonably loud, while the bass sounded muddled and was scrambling for space with the guitars. <\/p>\n

Songs followed each other in a stream of poorly defined texture, and it is the superb songwriting and nothing else that made \u201cBlack Tongue\u201d and \u201cBlasteroid\u201d stand out from this sonic goulash.<\/p>\n

\"\"Things picked up during \u201cAll the Heavy Lifting\u201d, \u201cSpectrelight\u201d and \u201cCurl of the Burl\u201d \u2013 the highlights of the show which drew animated response from the sold-out venue. But if problems with the sound are that severe as they were on the night, all of it is bound to affect the musicians. And while Mastodon weren\u2019t firing on all cylinders, you can\u2019t fault the band for not giving up under the circumstances.
\nMastodon, of course, are no virtuosos when it comes to instrumental skill, but flashy chops isn\u2019t what this band is about. With them, it\u2019s all about great grooves, epic moods (which sadly they were able to convey only occasionally this time), and the candour with which they channel the primordial archetypes to build and inhabit their universe. <\/p>\n

The London date, while not projecting half of what Mastodon is capable of, was nevertheless a telling experience. It showed that with a certain type of band \u2013 where instrumental mastery is not the biggest aim \u2013 factors such a poor sound mix can turn what could still have been a good performance into a disappointment. And while band can create marvels in the studio, when it comes to touring, the whole thing turns into a completely different ballgame. <\/p>\n

Set list:
\n1. Dry Bone Valley
\n2. Black Tongue
\n3. Crystal Skull
\n4. I Am Ahab
\n5. Capillarian Crest
\n6. Colony of Birchmen
\n7. Megalodon
\n8. Thickening
\n9. Blasteroid
\n10. Sleeping Giant
\n11. Ghost of Karelia
\n12. All the Heavy Lifting
\n13. Spectrelight
\n14. Curl of the Burl
\n15. Bedazzled Fingernails
\n16. Circle of Cysquatch
\n17. Aqua Dementia
\n18. Crack the Skye
\n19. Where Strides the Behemoth
\n10. Iron Tusk
\n11. March of the Fire Ants
\n12. Blood Thunder<\/p>\n

Encore:
\nCreature Lives<\/p>\n

Photos Appear Courtesy of Alissa Ordabai<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Alissa Ordabai Staff Writer — February 11, 2012 at Brixton Academy, London, U.K. There couldn\u2019t have been a greater difference between the finely wrought, multi-layered sound of Mastodon\u2019s latest album and the way they […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6816],"tags":[307,164,3819],"class_list":{"0":"post-18237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arcconrvw2012","7":"tag-concert-review","8":"tag-live","9":"tag-mastodon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}