Acid Mothers Temple — Chelsea, 13 May

note: both of these events have given us one free ticket upon our request - we are committed to being honest in our reviews in any case, but are prioritising the “sponsored” gigs in our as you see very limited reviewing energy :P

OG Japanese psychedelic rock group, I never really listened before but figured it’s time to catch them live. I will say I was hoping for a bit of an even more freaked-out gig, but that’s a very high bar considering the few records I checked out before. They definitely rocked and soloed hard and have a cool, synth-forward sound; I enjoyed myself but remember thinking that more than the gig itself it made me intrigued in listening to their records more, if only because I think the sound was overall not as great as such a kind of music made me wish for. Thankfully they had like a gazillion singular CDs of mostly weird side projects (or sometimes not even their own stuff) with them so I have some experimental techno by the synth guy (I think) waiting to be experienced at home now. On another note, and in favor of the live setting, it was a pretty cool experience seeing these gaunt old guys just absolutely go for it with closed eyes. Also in the end, one of the guitarist kinda swayed the neck of his guitar over the audience and let us play whatever on it, which was really cute!