It was a good turnout for a Wednesday night in Berkeley. It’s good for San Francisco and East Bay bands to play shows on both sides of the Bay. Different people from parts of the city make it out who would not otherwise. It’s hard to always be going to San Francisco or Oakland for shows, as band members often live in many different parts of the Bay Area. People like to go out locally on a weeknight for shows, and it showed at this event. The Ivy Room is a great venue in North Berkeley to do shows for those who live in that neck of the woods. It was a reunion of friends from the local psych scene, with newer and older bands both playing on the bill and combinations of members from multiple bands including the opening band, Star Decay. This Mosaic 3 piece has members of The Spiral Electric, Green Door, and Coywolf doing a more garage psych sound. The songs are more stripped down to the core,. with Ramones bass lines and riffs. The riffs punch through as a three piece in the mix, and could be played in large stadiums with lots of reverb on the vocals. The songs are big, and they hit hard like the Rocket to Russia era of the Ramones, where each song hits and then goes into the next during the set. Vintage San Francisco imagery was projected behind the band as they played with feedback visuals and flashing strobe lights. Multi-colored prismatic light, deep space zodiac imagery, old science films and animations were all over the stage throughout their set. There is a nice lush production in the mix of the guitars and driving bass. Surf and garage inspired tracks got the audience grooving to the pulse. Actually, each of the three bands on the bill played either a surf-styled track or a cowboy dust up song. So while the overall tone of the show was a psych garage vibe, there were these undertones of surf, as well as cosmic country present throughout the night. The band switched drum and bass players for a few songs in the end, all without missing a beat, as they both shared vocals on most of the songs anyway. Their voices blended well, giving the vocals a garage and alternative sound when sung together. Their set had lots of dynamic shifts, and very recognizable riffs like a set of singles being played off their greatest hits album. The band has yet to record their first EP, but the songs sounded really flushed out and road tested. This is a great band to see live, as they have played many shows in the last two years, but no singles or recordings as of yet. They just like the raw energy of playing live, and play often they do. They play the kind of music you want to see live, so maybe they don’t need a record.You just have to see this dynamic three piece live, and that would be the only way to see this entertaining and energetic band.
The Veteran Bay Area Psych favorites, The Love Dimension, took the stage next. This band has had many incarnations over the years, and just started playing live again after four years with the Pandemic putting things on hold. But before that, they were active for over a decade playing shows all over California. They have a huge catalog of songs to choose from when playing live, and probably could have played all their hits in a three-hour Bruce Springsteen type marathon show. They would need a whole telethon charity event to play their whole catalog live in front of an audience. They streamlined their set, to just the best of the best, most recognized tracks from the band. Since these songs have been in the band for so long, the different members and the original members all play the songs differently now. It’s nice to hear updated and alternative versions of songs I’ve heard before live and on the recordings. It’s nice how music can be molded, grow and evolve with different arrangements, instrumentation, percussive approaches and time signatures. I like how this band takes a psychedelic idea and applies it to their “Box set” of material. The ease in low key opener “Outer Space” almost sounds like a campfire version of the original, a kind of simplified down and slower than usual version. Images of sky time lapse gave the feeling of old friends sitting down in nature, getting back to basics and catching up. The band’s classic love song, “True Love Will Find You in The End” was also played with that similar reunion spirit, as well as the song “Together Again,” which also has an upbeat surf reunion theme. The surf is indeed “up” again, and it’s nice to ride the waves with old friends. I liked how the band chose those two songs from their catalog about friends and old flames, as a customized message to the audience and the members there. The Love Dimension’s songs are just that. Each has its own frequency, with its own clear message and vibration, lyrically and musically. “Finding a way to find one’s gold metaphorically within, opening your inner eye, while being bound to the sound driving down the 101 Highway of life.” “Learn to love yourself, and everyone else.” The words themselves feel blessed as they are sung to the crowd, almost like vocal Reiki. It really does feel good and healing to be in the presence of this driving positive rock music. The message of each song is very clear. Vintage tropical visuals covered the band, with analog 60s computer imagery and moirés of optical art patterns, giving the band an art rock vibe. The two female vocals in stereo sounded amazing in the mix, with tambourine and shakers, as well as two guitars, being a six-piece band in total. You can hear the depths of spirit in the music as the songs are played, each imbued with a deep soul of the multiple band members in the mix. The band closed with a newer evolved version of “Inner Eye Insight,”, as they journeyed into a more Motorik Kkrautrock vibe that got experimental as the last song in their set. The visuals strobed, as the audience was being projected through inter-dimensional jungles, shape-shifting mountain ranges, and planetary landscapes with flashing black and white art imagery.
Melting Elephants took the stage as the final band of the evening, opening with an eight minute birth of the universe drone psych song, picking right up where the Love Dimension left the audience with the last track of their set. This was a great continuation of the night, with the sets in a way linking with each other energetically. We were all on the edge of the desert, and then the drugs began to take hold. Awash in a digital blue rain for the first part of the set, the band had custom visuals to go with these first few songs, getting a live remix by White Light Prism, who was doing projections with the bands all evening. Each band got a unique visual pallet for their set, and each song was customized in a way to the vibe of each song. Sliding feedback and strobes went along with the rolling bass lines and shimmering delay guitar, like the soundtrack to a Carlos Castaneda novel, where the peyote has just kicked in. Visually we explore the micro verse, as the band unlocks the DNA of within. Urban landscapes play along some of the band’s more psych punk vibes, with neon sky, black and white oil splashes, and old nature photographs. The songs have a good, solid underlining songwriting structure, that would sound good acoustically as well. The second song had almost a tropicalia cloud 9 vibe, and could almost be translated to Portuguese or Spanish with the way the melody was sung. The band played a classic cosmic country-type dust up song that would go over really well at any dive bar in the Southwest. I can see them hitting the road playing their style of western American music in that area of the world. I got a cool southwest punk vibe from this three piece, as they wore black cowboy hats but with psychedelic punk blazers, and had a very theatrical image onstage as they played. There are dark psych western garage influences. They leave room for lots of extended jams and guitar solos, and each song has a solid vocal delivery. Overall, it was a great combination of bands for a great weeknight East Bay show. The Ivy Room is the premiere north Berkeley venue. The sound was handled excellently, and the bar had some drink specials to make the evening not too expensive. The venue is in a great spot in Berkeley for local shows.
Social Media Links:
https://www.facebook.com/melting.elephants/
https://thelovedimension.bandcamp.com/
