Live Review: Lightning Bolt @ 1269, April 11, 2007.

fe·vered
a. A condition of heightened activity or excitement: a fever of anticipation.
b. A contagious, usually short-lived enthusiasm or craze: disco fever.

When I was tasked with writing a Lightning Bolt live review, I was overwhelmed. I first tried to break it down into manageable pieces. What words described that night? Fevered was the perfect word, or so I thought. When I looked it up, the results above were not quite sufficient; this was the definition of "fevered" not considering actually having a fever. Though I wasn't sick, the feeling in the room was beyond the illness that your mom used to get you out of school for. There was a sort of heated, angsty anticipation I had never really felt before.

When I heard Lightning Bolt was coming through Los Angeles, I was excited. I'd never seen them before and listening to their music only made me curious. They never announced the locations of either shows in LA, so everything happened by word of mouth. This particular night, somewhere around 700 people showed up to see the madness in action. The wall of people leading up to the stage seemed inpenetrable. The one thing on the halfpipe stage clearly visible upon entrance was a big circular mirror hovering above a wall of speakers that the band brought with them. This was a hostile show of force.

The setup period seemed too long, and though the band apologized for the wait, part of me wants to believe that they wanted to make everyone wait just that much longer.

From the first drum hit straight through to the last fuzzy bass notes almost an hour and a half later, the noise didn't seem to stop. There must've been 40 people on the top of the halfpipe and 150 surrounding the band on the stage. Right below the stage is where most of the madness happened though. After the initial rush of "2 morrow morrow land," everything seemed to open up. Somehow, I'm surprised that no one got severly injured. Everyone, including Ted Leo, was getting really into the experience.

Lightning Bolt ran through a good amount of their recorded material, mostly focusing on material off of Hypermagic Mountain and even working in some improvisations. I wish I could describe more of what went on; this is really where the word "fevered" comes in handy. The middle hour of the show (after the first 15 minutes and before the last 15 minutes) seems to run together in my mind, as if I were hallucinating. The heat of the room, combined with the constant noise assault creates the perfect fever dream scenario. The last 10 minutes were something to remember, however. Lightning Bolt jammed on "Dracula Mountain," a song that everyone seems to know. The crowd went absolutely apeshit. There were kids jumping off of the halfpipe, 15 feet off the ground. Kids were dancing all the way back, realizing that something like this wasn't going to happen again soon.

If you've never been to see Lightning Bolt, get out of your parents' basement and see the world. Treat yourself to a good pair of earplugs and a bottle of water and live a little. These two guys are proof that RISD is one of the coolest places to be.

PS. Here's a great documentary about Lightning Bolt that I found on youtube. It has a running time of 71 minutes and the quality isn't that great, but it comes from a DVD that you can find on the intarwebs for purchase. Watching the first three minutes will give you a good idea of what you missed.