Lava Club, Costa Mesa, California
On Monday, February 26th, the Holy Barbarians played at the Lava Club in Costa
Mesa, California. The Lava Club is an almost underground bar/dance/concert
club in an industrial complex which host shows by mostly punk and hardcore
bands on Fridays and Mondays, so I was a surprised Friday to find a note in
the LA Times concert and events section about the "Holy Barbarians with Ian
Astbury from the Cult" playing at this club near my home! It was a real treat
to get a preview of Ians’ new band with no cover and without the hype and
B.S. that shows of this nature get in Hollywood.
I really did not know what to expect musically from the Holy Barbarians even
though I’ve read the posts saying they are heavier, jazzier, etc. The opening
band who's name I unfortunately do not remember even though they had a couple
of posters with their logo on them pasted to the wall behind them did not help
as their style could be best described as a mix of funk, punk and rock and only
mediocre at best. After their set, nearly two hours of full-on disco from the
70’s was pumped through the sound system and while a lot of people were
dancing to remixed Blondie, Queen, Chic, and other such delights, many of the
rest of the crowd spent the time watching the often comical dancing moves from
the bar.
Finally, the Barbarians came on after midnight with Ian relaxed, casually
dressed in a red long sleaved shirt and nearly unrecgnizable in perscription
wire framed glasses and short wavey hair dyed blond in the front. Ripping into
2 songs from the forthcoming album with Ian playing guitar on the second tune,
the band played straight ahead guitar rock that got the crowd rocking right
away. Then they launched into The Witch and the place was really jumping.
At one point in between songs, Ian thanked the crowd for showing up to see them
and someone shouted "What about the Cult?" and his reply was that the Cult was
"boring and pretentious and they are dead" which seemed like news to more then a
few people there. Stand out songs in the 45 minute set were Cream and
Space Junkie, the later which has a nice guitar hook to it. Another
Cult favorite, Wild Flower was also played and for the closing encore,
Helter Skelter, although Motley Crue gave the difinitive hard rock
version of it more then 10 years ago.
All in all, the band was in very sharp form for being together only a few
months. It was great to be standing only a foot or two from the band as they
played in a setting which was like being in a living room with the stage only a
couple feet high off the floor. No introductions to the band members made them
seem a bit anonymous and the keyboard player completely buried in the sounds
mix, seemed wildly out of place with his Elvis 50's look and red jumpsuit!
Live, the new stuff is mostly Electric era sounding but without the
memorable hooks that made Lil' Devil, Electric Ocean and so on
catchy. Unfortunately, this means that the new material has a sameness about it
and the fact that Ian’s vocals were nearly indecipherable from my vantage point
(standing three feet from Ian on his right side in front of guitarist’ Patrick
Sugg) made it impossible to pick up the lyrics to most of the tunes. I will
reserve final judgement however, until the new album is released as far as the
quality of the new songs.
Two closing points:
(1) I hope they dump the cover of Helter Skelter. If they’re looking
for something cool to cover, try Livin’ on Livin by the Lords of the New
Church or any old Stooges tunes like Gimmie Danger or Death
Trip.....More suited to the Barbarians style and much cooler!
(2) Is it me or does Ian looks more and more like Jeffrey Combs, the guy who
played the crazed doctor Herbert West in the flick Re Animator? (just kidding!)
Tom Bell - bellt@novaquest.com