BRAIN: Rocking Don Hill's 6/8/01

[Jason Scruton]

For me, at least, this show  was a long time coming -- last time I saw
Albert B. and Co. was in Rochester NY 4 years ago, when Billy Hilfiger and
Peter Bohevesky handled guitar duties and the band did an extended jam on
"Name Your Monster." Great times.   I really didn't know what to expect of
the band's live sound as a threepiece, and that's a good thing. At this
show, I felt as if I was experiencing the band for the very first time, all
the way back at the Rongovian Embassy in the fall of '94 when everyone was
new to everyone else and "Mad Dude" was played twice.

But at the wonderfully chock full-o-character bar/performance space of Don
Hill's, the threepiece of Albert, Deborah and David marshalled a
fmaliar,but phoenix-like NEW kind of Surgeonsound.  The rhythm section,
Albert+whoever was on Bass duty for a song, was  completley in sync (of
course, not the boy band! Shudder to think such a thought!) brazenly
strident, marshalling both well known tBS tracks and new tunes in a
strident, "we're here to kick out the jams, mf'ers!!", kind of way. The tunes?
They played a tight set, consisting of:

Last Angry Woman (Deborah vox & guitar, David bass)
Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll (Deborah guitar, David bass, Albert vox)
Time Will Take Care of You (same as Cities...
Sinful Love (Deborah bass, David guitar, Albert vox)
Room to Rage (same as Sinful Love)
Medusa (Deborah guitar, David Bass)
St. Vitus Dance (Deboarh bass, David guitar)
Godzilla (Godjira drums, Debroah Guitar, David bass, 2 audience members vox)

Obviously, the highlights of the set were the performances of Sinful Love
and Room to Rage, which were used to advertise the upcoming Helen Wheels
tribute CD (whose proceeds are all going to charity).  If you have not
heard the MP 3 of "Sinful Love" availible (linked to on www.celsum.com) DO
IT NOW. It has a completely different feel than what you're used to on
BOC's Agents of Fortune. It's cool and loud and reckless. I loved it.
Having heard Helen Wheels and the Skeleton Crew play twice, the excellent
rendition of her barnburnin' Room to Rage was very touching and, above all,
performed in  a Surgeonish way, but retaining all of the punk attitude  on
heard on Archetype.  Their repect for Helen as a close friend and a musical
talent brightly burns through the Surgeons' delivery.

Godzilla, on the other hand, was the most familiar to me from my BOC
collection, but in the hands of Deborah,Albert and Dave, the funk-ish drum
pattern which marked the original is expanded upon and coupled with a good
loud guitar. To boot, this re-arragnement included the use of back vocals
to ill out the more familiar Donald Roeser note bends on the original(this
is also true of St. Vitus Dance). Not one to let a possibility for audience
rabble rousing pass by, the band extended the middle bit of the song (right
after Albert did his warnings in Japanese) to allow for the left side of
the stage shouting "god", the right "zilla", which soon broke into the
mighty appearance of the drumming beast himself - repsplendent in strobe
lights a and peerless kineticism on the skins. Almost as if on cue, as the
verses rerturned to close out the song, massive tendrils of smoke from the
bar occupants clouded the stage -- despite the "health benefits" of the
smoke, the visual effect was rather cool -- Greenwich Ave. really was on
Flame. Indeed, this was THE band to do it.

Deborah's guitar playing has shifted the weight of the material into a
rougher, tougher terrain than the well honed, craftily bent notes of
Bohevesky and Hilfiger. Live show chestnuts like Time Will take care of
You, Medusa and St. Vitus Dance (the latter has always been one of my
favorite tunes of theirs, and it still holds true after last night) had a
more leering swagger and urgency which wasn't as apparent on the first
threee CDs. Deborah's been able to hand the transition for vox to
vocalist/guitar player incredibly well and she's improved gratly since
joinin on Dominance and Submission in the olde days.  The same is true of
Last Angry Woman... For all intents and purposes, this band was a new band
which had been around since Eponymous -- but only now have the power trio
really seemed to find a groove they havent been to.   One of the things
I've alwys written about in the past when recounting tales of the Brain
Surgeons, was that This Band Has Fun on stage, and again, it's almost a
metaphysical certitude that hits you like a guitar solo and leaves you
gasping for air (well, it left me gasping for air -- when the urge to dance
hits, you dance! others were so inclined to, and the band fed off the
collective imitiations of whilring dervishes)-- that's the best reason to
do this crazy thing called rock and roll, isn't it?   Thanks once again for
making rock and roll happen all over again, guys. It does the soul good.

Look out summer tour locations -- you WILL be blown away.

Black heart of soul,
Jason

PS: The Philadelpia date has been cancelled.