Black Moth Super Rainbow/Dan Friel - Rock'n'Roll Hotel - July 26 2009

Dan Friel - One guy doing electronica. You know, I get one request a week from someone who wants to be my myspace friend and does this kind of stuff from noise to ambient, most likely in their bedroom. This music was somewhere in between noise and ambient. A lot of people stood around and watched and listened. No one danced or bobbed their head. Yet, it wasn't involved shoegazing either, just a mild respect. After a few cuts, I went upstairs to listen to the jukebox blast out Black Sabbath and Metallica and read some more of my Dawn Powell novel. Nothing terrible, just not enough to hold my interest.

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Black Moth Super Rainbow - The set begins with a funny video introduction on a screen in front of the stage. The band comes on and the music begins with video. The screen was a bit distracting cutting off a lot of viewing although the video was well above average. Musically, it was electronic, although instrumented as opposed to computer and it seemed fair at first. But as it played on, I really got involved and found it quite catchy. The crowd was large and supportive with some dancing and swaying this time. The singer had a crazed angora suit with a mask/wig that looked like Abbie Hoffman, no wait more like Tommy Chong. He was out in the crowd a lot mingling while singing which everyone enjoyed including an enthusiastic 12-ish year old boy there with his dad. I thought the staging reminded me of the Flaming Lips and what do you know, I now read that they toured with them (I try to do more research after my observations than before and enjoy making the connections on my own). This is music I am far from an expert on, but I think they do it admirably. And one key was having real people play bass, drums and keyboards. It really makes a difference.

Quote of the night: "This band is a bunch of douche bags and anyone who likes them is a douche bag." I'm paraphrasing a bit from the very funny intro video that had a seemingly real rant by a guy who talked about his five most hated non mainstream bands which included Black Moth Super Rainbow. Then there was a funny rebuttal of sorts. A nice way to open things off.