Info
MP3 LIVE: Wolfmother - Good Moon Rising
Australian three-piece transforms cozy San Francisco venue into rocking arena circa 1975.
The rock revival of the past few years has seen loads of bands hearken back to the likes of The New York Dolls, The Velvet Underground, and MC5.
Wolfmother
But many of today's "rock bands" would be squashed under the leather boots of the guitar gods of arena rock in the late 1970s.
Black Sabbath would eat The Strokes for breakfast.
Led Zeppelin wouldn't even bother wiping Interpol from the bottom of its shoe.
Even Rush would have a chuckle watching Franz Ferdinand's act.
The same cannot be said for Australia's Wolfmother, a three-piece band built on power chords, metal crescendos, and jammy psychedelia. Though the band's self-titled debut full-length album won't hit US stores until May, the band is already being fawned over domestically thanks to the first single, "Dimension," imported copies of the album surfacing on the Internet, and music-bloggers.
The throwback trio played a show at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill on Saturday night as part of the Noise Pop Festival, and it's a wonder the venue is still in one piece.
In typical old-school fashion, Wolfmother nonchalantly arrived at the show during the final song of the last opening band's set, with oglers in the packed venue pointing toward lead singer and guitarist Andrew Stockdale's trademark afro.
And what an afro it is. When Wolfmother take the stage, Stockdale's face is barely visible. It's only when he occasionally steps onto the front monitors and peers into the crowd that fans can clearly see his mug.
Not that most fans are actually watching the band. From the first riffs of "Dimension," almost the entire crowd is a-rockin'--nodding heads back and forth in unison. Yes, ultra-laid-back San Francisco is almost head-banging. The thundering tempo changes and drug-addled lyrics ("The purple haze is in the sky") of "Dimension" remind the crowd of everything that was good about the rock of yesteryear, and the rest of the show is like a wonderfully frenzied trip in the way-back machine.
Chris Ross' pounding bass and Myles Heskett's steady drumming in "Pyramid" keep the crowd thoroughly entranced, but it's only a few bars later that the band's fourth instrument really shines. Stockdale lets loose some high-pitched howls while simultaneously replicating the tune with his guitar--a duet of sorts--before delivering the lines "Can you see it's full of lightning/All the futures that I see are whitening."
Those in attendance waiting for Wolfmother to play a ballad so they can skip off to the restroom are disappointed. The show continues to elevate, particularly when Ross ditches his stringed bass for the organ. The epic intro of "The Joker and the Thief" nearly blows the roof off the building before materializing into what sounds like Sabbath played a few RPMs faster.
Fan favorites "Woman" and "White Unicorn" have similar effects on the crowd--and seemingly time and space. At this point, the only things missing from a complete time warp are flashy pyrotechnics and two inches of light beer on the ground.
From the looks of it, the members of the Wolfmother pack weren't even born when many of the bands that influenced them were in their heyday, but these pups from Down Under have rightfully earned the buzz that's surrounded them.
Wolfmother taps into every human's biological need to rock.
If they continue to play shows like they did Saturday night, they could well end up like their ancestors--immortalized music gods playing on the 50-yard line of your local football stadium. Rock on.
Just added
