Dead Meadow - Middle East Cambridge, MA 4-20-08

**



Dead Meadow
The Middle East Downstairs
Cambridge, MA
Sunday, April 20, 2008

After a two or three minute sort of siren, drone the band took off with "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" which leads off then new cd. For the next ninety minutes the audience was thrust into the psychedelic, stoner drone. The tracks at times seems to lumber along and drummer Steven McCarly would have these monster fills with hardly even moving. His kick drum was a marching band size bass drum on the floor. He was slightly elevated via a riser and the trippy lights would wash over his drum kit. He was a man on a mission and really held things together. Bassist Steve Kille was the most animated, sort of a bass player all over his section of the stage. He'd jump and sway as the grooves got deeper and deeper. The sounds that he was pulling from his Rickenbacker bass thru two full Orange cabs shook the bowels of the place.

Jason Simon was vocally buried in the mix. After the first song he asked how we were and how it sounded and a few people said "turn up the vocals". It is not that Simon is a great singer, but when someone is in front of a mic and you can hardly hear them you sort of perk up and get frustrated. It was never worked out to my liking personally and at times Kille would drop these sonic bass bombs that would get the whole place shaking. Simon would have a few moments to shine as a guitar player as well with some great epic riffs tossed in for good measure, but then he'd trip them out good with a series of effect pedals.

When the band would hit instrumental interludes they'd really shine. On some levels I'd almost prefer if they were totally instrumental, but I'll take what I can get. It might not be for everyone and I swear the band got good and baked before the show but if you like your rock sort of slow and plodding with a lot of bottom to it, check out Dead Meadow



Dead Meadow official page, their myspace page as well as a little on
Wikipedia

Image taken from
this blog post. Credit to that person somehow.