| A Perfect Circle |
| with Giants Of Science |
| 23/2/2004, Festival Hall, Melbourne. |
|
Well, it had certainly been a while between drinks for Andy Neumann and Festival Hall. I think the last gig I saw there was probably
Ozzy Osbourne, way back in 1998, so was keen to check out if they'd done anything to the place since - which is yes and no.
Same basic layout - but I found out a nice surprise whilst there (not sure if this has always been the case though).
I rocked up to get my tickets (thank you Mr. O'Brien) to find that we had seats. I thought, "Oh... that's cool" thinking back to
the seats along the sides of the place. But these were very nice balcony seats. And it was only when we went down for a drink did
we discover that balcony seating also has access to GA! So that was rather cool - the choice of GA, or some really excellent balcony
seats. We had a bit of a wander downstairs, but the place was PACKED, so we opted for the seats - great view... Giants Of Science Great name... um... what else can I say. I suppose they weren't too bad - there was one song in there that had some really cool timings in the riff, but for the most part, this was a band that was just filler. Somebody you're likely to see playing second one Friday night at the Espy... A Perfect Circle What can I say - all those years bitching and moaning about the sound at Festival Hall are now proved wrong. A Perfect Circle blew me away with their sound. They did a really great job of balancing their ambience with the power of their riffs, and they were able to translate the space and feeling of their studio recordings really well to the stage. That I was quite impressed with. Opening with "Crimes" and the "Vanishing" from the latest album, the first 5 or 6 songs went from strength to strength. Second song in came "The Hollow" and I was sold. Then (from memory) they played "Weak and Powerless". They were delivering with the precision and feeling that I always want out of a live show. But it started to dawn on me about 4 songs in, that this band only had 2 albums, and that in my opinion, they were playing all the best tracks first. It was either going to be a very short gig, or have a fairly patchy section. I'm not sure which I would've preferred, but the band opted for the latter unfortunately. There was certainly a period of about 5 songs where I thought that they could've chopped it out to make it a higher impact show. During these times however, I watched the individual members of the band. It struck me that this band really is a "supergroup". I walked away from the night quite impressed with each individuals talents (with perhaps the exception of James Iha, who I never really thought much of in Smashing Pumpkins as well - if someone can explain to me where this guy's talent lies, I'd be interested to know. As far as I'm aware, Billy Corgan wrote and played most of the Pumpkin's songs and Iha was nothing more than really just a touring guitarist. And from what live stuff I've seen, he butchered a few of the solo's as well... but hey I'm rambling, that's another webpage in itself) Back to the story though, Josh Freese was brilliant, as, unsurprisingly, was Maynard James Keenan on vocals. I was a little surprised at the solid bass work provided by Geordie White (aka Twiggy from Marilyn Manson). He was damn fine. Billy Howerdel's guitar work was good, but nothing spectacular - I was actually more impressed by his backing vocals (very nice, and sounding very much like Maynard). So, during the, as I like to call it "interesting patch", they managed to kill my fave song, "3 Libras" (well, it actually started off quite well, but then went rapidly downhill during the distorted parts). At this point I was a tad concerned that we were looking at a fizzle, not a bang to finish it all off, but pleasantly I was proved wrong. The band did some serious "getting our shit together" for the last couple of songs - "The Outsider", an extended and full band version of "The Nurse", "The Noose" and their final song of "Judith". All in all, at the end of the night I was really impressed with the band, and thought that minus a few songs it would've been an amazing gig. As a result, sound wise it was brilliant, the view / seats were fantastic, but as an "entire package" it was just pretty good. Definitely happy I saw them. |