The psych-rock band struggle to keep the magic alive.

‘Have you seen the film Dig?’, a middle-aged punter asks his friend beside me just as The Brian Jonestown Massacre are to take to the stage. It’d be easy to laugh at a comment like this in such a charged, cliquey gathering as that of an astoundingly-prolific neo-psych-rock heritage outfit’s audience base, but, admittedly, I’m in a similar boat.

I’ve known of San Francisco’s psychedelic veterans since I saw the 2004 rockumentary Dig! in my second year of university. I was always more taken with film’s narrators, though, The Dandy Warhols. The Dandys’ slick, sardonic take on the pop song (Bohemian Like You, We Used To Be Friends, etc) filled me with much more energy and inspiration than provocateur frontman Anton Newcombe’s murky soundscapes… and, yes, I’m aware of how controversial that opinion is.

And so, I go into The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Manchester date as an intrigued, albeit distant, enjoyer of their music. An acquaintance… not yet friends, perhaps. It’s always fascinating to see how veteran cult bands fare in the modern day — some persevere through the rainy decades still with plenty of magic in their back pocket (The Wedding Present), others slip by the wayside, dazed and confused. America’s closest thing to The Fall ramshackle through the evening in a mix of both camps. 

Firstly, I have a lot of respect for Anton Newcombe. He’s a musical nomad, a beatnik oddity. The controversial singer-songwriter is like the 3-chord-blueprint of punk rock put into the world of psychedelia. Like a Jack Kerouac side-character, he’s hustled through his career as a creative both insufferably charming and charmingly insufferable. However, now leading the Jonestown aged fifty-seven and after various health issues, I saw little of the fire behind the eyes of Newcombe.

The dictator of the group — and I don’t use the term lightly — leads the show from the side of the stage, back crooked and head held low like a jaded shoe-gazer. His presence feels strangely sidelined, kept at bay behind cartoonish sunglasses and a feathered hat which ought to have been left behind in the seventies by wedding-going grandmothers. The singer’s trademark rasp still hums with melancholy intrigue, but Newcombe sadly seems to wither away behind the large iPad / booklet he stares at to remember the chords and lyrics to his own back-catalogue. However, I must admit, if there’s ever been a back-catalogue expansive enough to warrant a visual guide, it’s The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s. 

The unavoidable force of ageing rings strong. I notice a man behind me self-righteously say, ‘This was our generation’s Xbox’… whatever that means.

Joel Gion stands in the centre of the stage… perhaps the proud owner of the music industry’s greatest sideburns. If Manchester City fanatic (and Oasis frontman) Liam Gallagher smacks the tambourine as if it were Gary Neville, then Gion caresses the tambourine as if it were an aloof lover. It’s vaguely hypnotic: a feathery ripple throughout the sea of sound. He strikes me as the Brian Eno to Newcombe’s Bryan Ferry… not that this performance of sluggish psychedelia stands on its two feet against Eno-era Roxy Music, of course. 

To put it bluntly, The Brian Jonestown’s set is cursed by a mid-tempo meandering. The songs flow well enough, but they never seem to change in dynamics. Even starry-eyed romp That Girl Suicide from debut LP Methodrone fails to pick up the pace in the early part of the set… and the remainder of the evening trickles along with a similar murkiness. It’s a shame: plenty of these songs are truly wonderful, perfect to lose yourself within during an afternoon haze, or a late-night meditation (Pish, #1 Lucky Kitty, crowd-pleaser Anemone), but they all fade into one, sinking at the feet of the now seemingly bored beatniks. 

I receive a text off of a friend who I lost within the pit: ‘Sorry, I’ve gone home. It’s really boring.’ Strangely, I feel validated that I’m not the only one trying to find the wonder that I know must be here somewhere.

Strangely, the one high of the set comes in the form of Swedish cut Vad Hände Med Dem. The Jonestown are joined by Les Big Byrd’s Jocke Åhlund, who injects the set with an instantaneous sense of youth and optimism. Anymore, at least. Åhlund happily takes the role of frontman for three minutes, where the group finally reek of the fabled rock ’n’ roll suicide that their younger selves lived and, almost, died in. It’s also a nice nod to Newcombe’s variety of collaborative work. He’s not just the myopic, Byronic loner that the media often paint him as.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre are an oddity. An entity of peculiarity caught in a hamster wheel of rock ’n’ roll touring commitments. Undoubtedly, they’re still legends of alternative music. At Albert Hall, there’s just no vigour to prove it in a live capacity.

Maybe I just expected more fights. Maybe I was too sober. Or, maybe, I just don’t get it, man… 

All photos by Adam Edwards.

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