[live review] Lightning Bolt melt faces at the Paradise

 

Quick: see if you can spot the details in the photo, below, taken right before LIGHTNING BOLT began their set last night at Paradise, that do not compute:



Any astute observer of the band would very easily be able to pinpoint three weird things going on here:

1) The band appears to be doing a soundcheck;
2) There appear to be microphones set up to record the drum set;
3) The band appear to be getting ready to perform on a stage.

The horror, the horror!  Our beloved Lightning Bolt, the legendary art-punk institution of noise weirdness that has periodically attacked the Hub from their home base in Providence, behaving like a "norm" rock band?  Not seen in the photo: the band working with a booking agent! And not playing in someone's basement!  For those not in the know, Lightning Bolt are a band renowned for not only their bludgeoning two-piece attack but for their unusual gig tactics, with their signature move being to set up on the floor on the opposite side of the room from the stage while the prior band is winding down their set, only to *surprise!* spring into action the second the prior set ends.  The tactic tended to give their gigs a jolt of energy and crowd enthusiasm that meant that for most people, the Lightning Bolt live experience was one of a full body-contact moshpit insane-a-thon, where a barrage of noise corresponding with an inability for all but about fifteen people in the room to actually see the band play.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that last night's show, which saw the band perform in a headlining slot at an above-ground club with a soundguy on a stage with lights, was awesome if totally removed from the typical experience of seeing the band.  It was, basically, like seeing a totally different band: without the adrenaline rush of watching the band's drum kit and bass cabs perilously veer towards being toppled over, one could observe the band at their top-dollar best and just revel in the sheer rifftastic rock action that their performance exuded.  Although much is made of the band's alleged "noise" affiliation, a close inspection reveals that they are far too much of a rock band, with riff-based arrangements that are tight and circuitous, to really fit the tag.  Sunday's show, which leaned heavily on 2009's Earthly Delights (Load), was a constant propulsive thrust, as the superhuman velocity of drummer Brian Chippendale was met and matched by the inventive fury of bassist Brian Gibson.

Removed from the impending danger and fight-or-flight adrenaline rush of the typical Bolt melee, it was far easier to appreciate the band on purely musical terms: the intense dynamics of the band's arrangements, the tricky hairpin turns the two Brians make look so easy.  Chippendale's trap work is a never-ending thing of wonder to behold: although he provides a rock backbone, it's done with a jazzy swing, like he's putting a fresh batch of popcorn in the microwave every three minutes.  but the standard setup really benefited the other Brian particularly, as his seizure-inducing bass volleys shone through and connected with Chippendale's thwack in a constant feedback loop of awesomeness.  The end result: sheer psychedelic ecstasy, as the set kept climbing to greater and greater summits of rock explosiveness.

Lightning Bolt rose to prominence in the late 90s and early 00s, an ugly period in rock history where hard rock, metal and punk all veered towards a putrid rebuttal to the classicism of prior generations of rock history-- Lightning Bolt somehow seemed and still seem to both fit into this trend, with their wrestling masks and splattered sonic messiness, and buck it entirely, by making blistering music that fit into no categories and refused to be negative or dreary.  At last night's gig, nearly twenty years into their career as one of the last holdouts of the late 90s Providence noise scene, Lightning Bolt proved that they were never just a gimmick; their transformative power blasted a hole through the standard rock format, proving that there is always a sonic alternative provided you have limitless enthusiasm and creativity.