Sonic Boom in Calgary
Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:00 pm
Had the very unexpected pleasure, in this musical desert known as Alberta, of seeing Sonic Boom on Saturday night. He was part of a small festival put together by some Calgarians featuring amongst others Damo Suzuki, SB, Dean & Britta/Cheval Sombre & Sun Araw.
There were about 500 people there in the strange setting of the British Legion club, some pretty spaced out music happening in a room full of military paraphernalia, faded photos of army veterans & a huge portrait of the Queen gazing down on the stage!!
The bar staff & glass collectors were mostly very old pensioners, who seemed quite oblivious to the cacophony enveloping them especially during the more exuberant warm up sets from local Calgary psyche bands.
Damo Suziuki sounded good, but the man is barely 5ft tall, so unless you were right at the front there was no chance of seeing him. Didn't recognise any Can numbers, just lots of free style grunting to a vaguely Krautrockish backing - good stuff though, I enjoyed it.
Sonic Boom played an hour long set, somewhat plagued by technical difficulties - Pete looked a bit frustrated at times - maybe the pressure of Her Majesty's icy glare bearing down on him. It seemed there was a hardcore of maybe 50 or so who knew what he was about, the idiot hipsters soon drifted off thankfully to go & be impossibly cool elsewhere in the building. I enjoyed the set immensely, havent seen SB/Spectrum live in about 20 years & never expected to see him here in Calgary (OK maybe at our fantastic Sled Island festival - but that was just an idle pipe dream). The set kicked off with Mary & weaved it's way through about 8 songs, a good mix of old & new. I did something I never do afterwards & went up to PK & just thanked him for the pleasure he has given me with is music, I've been listening to Spacemen 3 & the many derivations from them for 25+ years - nobody over here in my new Canadian home really knows much about him or them - it was nice to be back just for a short while.
D&B played a really good set of Galaxie 500 material, I have to admit to not listening to G500 much in recent years but was very surprised at how much of it i recognized & liked. Their spin-off group Cheval Sombre were also pretty cool, PK providing back up noise as well.
All in all, a very enjoyable evening.
There were about 500 people there in the strange setting of the British Legion club, some pretty spaced out music happening in a room full of military paraphernalia, faded photos of army veterans & a huge portrait of the Queen gazing down on the stage!!
The bar staff & glass collectors were mostly very old pensioners, who seemed quite oblivious to the cacophony enveloping them especially during the more exuberant warm up sets from local Calgary psyche bands.
Damo Suziuki sounded good, but the man is barely 5ft tall, so unless you were right at the front there was no chance of seeing him. Didn't recognise any Can numbers, just lots of free style grunting to a vaguely Krautrockish backing - good stuff though, I enjoyed it.
Sonic Boom played an hour long set, somewhat plagued by technical difficulties - Pete looked a bit frustrated at times - maybe the pressure of Her Majesty's icy glare bearing down on him. It seemed there was a hardcore of maybe 50 or so who knew what he was about, the idiot hipsters soon drifted off thankfully to go & be impossibly cool elsewhere in the building. I enjoyed the set immensely, havent seen SB/Spectrum live in about 20 years & never expected to see him here in Calgary (OK maybe at our fantastic Sled Island festival - but that was just an idle pipe dream). The set kicked off with Mary & weaved it's way through about 8 songs, a good mix of old & new. I did something I never do afterwards & went up to PK & just thanked him for the pleasure he has given me with is music, I've been listening to Spacemen 3 & the many derivations from them for 25+ years - nobody over here in my new Canadian home really knows much about him or them - it was nice to be back just for a short while.
D&B played a really good set of Galaxie 500 material, I have to admit to not listening to G500 much in recent years but was very surprised at how much of it i recognized & liked. Their spin-off group Cheval Sombre were also pretty cool, PK providing back up noise as well.
All in all, a very enjoyable evening.