Jon Spencer Blues ExplosionWith the crowd peppered with nearby tattoo expo attendees, it was suitable that a near naked, heavily inked man should first claim the stage with a guitar. The man, Leory, was one half of Gooch Palms, a male/female punk duo, and they did their best to whip the crowd into early excitement. Their abrasive brand of repetitive, bratty punk can't have been to everyone's ears, but they gave it their all and were a suitable opening for any blues punk show.
Less suitable in terms of musical approach, but no less impressive, were San Francisco psychedelic pair Moon Duo. Complete with their own pulsing light show, the droning rockers strummed through a lean, loose and hard-edged 45-minute set comprised primarily of songs from their excellent 2012 record, Circles.
The memories of any other band's performances soon fell away though, as The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion stomped on stage and let loose Black Mold. Any notion that the group's still impressive recorded output can hold a candle to their outstanding live show was destroyed in minutes. The dual guitar approach the band uses brings an almost noise-rock aesthetic to certain, looser numbers, but their rock'n'roll ideal shines through everything. The band belted through close to 80 minutes of high-energy, hard-rocking material, including most of their recent Meat + Bone record, and a smattering of '90s hits. The new material cracks and fizzles live, but the loudest cheers of the night came during punchy renditions of classics like Sweat and Blues X Man.
It's kind of an in-joke to see how many times Spencer can namedrop the group during a live show (for the record: close to 30 or so), but this localised meme beguiles the hard work the group clearly put into every moment on stage. The trio interact in an almost jazz band-like way- observing changes in each other's playing and moving songs along accordingly. Before all their hard work and Spencer's mock-celebrity posturing though, was a brilliantly fun and memorable rock show.
