Northern Lights - Clifton Park, NY, March 24, 2006
Buckethead, Del Rey Brewer, Pinchface
(opening act - That One Guy)
So I made the four and a half hour drive to lose my Live Buckethead
virginity on Friday and the drive would have been worth it for the opening act alone.
That 1 Guy about had me jumping out of my skin with the originality of his
music, his instruments and his overall act. He played not only what appeared
to be a human sized nutcracker with buttons and two long strings on either
side of the handles, but also a cowboy boot and a handsaw which he attached to a
leather belt with two metal pipes sticking out the front. The nutcracker had
apparently been invented by him and he played it alternately with a bow, a
drumstick his feet and his hands. He made love to it and it eagerly responded.
I have never seen or heard anything like it. He could make it a cello, a
drum machine, a bass, a synthesizer or a dance partner. He also had a forte for
acapella accents, some of which were very appropriately reminiscent of
chicken clucks. It all worked together to make me want to move my ass, which was
virtually impossible because of the tightly crowded space. Think Beck and Tom
Waits on acid while trading licks on a percussive dijerido with an interlude
of breakdancing and you may be somewhere in the right cosmic hemisphere. Of
course, this was just the warm up for who I was really there to see, and let me
tell you that I was not disappointed.
This particular adventure began the night before, in Coralysaland where
Buckethead made his quarterly nocturnal appearance. There were only about 30 of
us in the audience that night and he played in the middle of a 360 degree
amphitheater. Sort of like the vampire cave in that old movie The Lost Boys, but
without the ledges and maggots. Anyway, he played a large part of the set in an
ambient manner from halfway down a pit in center stage. His mask was crying.
Then he came up out of the pit and got heavy, showing us his skillful hands
up close and personal. In this particular appearance there was no physical
theater, just his standard virtuoso-osity in a single regular length set.
But in real life at The Northern Lights in Clifton Park, NY it was almost
exclusively heavy metal shredding, shredding, shredding until I wanted to lick
the gratefully bleeding ears to my left and right and kiss the severed heads
onstage. The only break from the heavy was a tune from Electric Tears. Not
only did I get off, but it was a multiple eargasmic double set followed by a
stellar encore. You could see people here and there become suddenly overcome,
bobbing and flapping and dancing, filled with the unholy spirits of the dead
chicken kin. Seeing this iconoclastic enigma and the effect he has on his fans
in person was shockingly better than in my dreams. After stunning the
audience with his entirely unique sound and technique he would suddenly burst into
brilliant mime silence or go perfectly robot while his fingers maintained
their unstoppable and impeccable momentum. I am exhausted just remembering his
endless endurance. How does he do it?
At one point he went into battle with invisible foes, numchucking them to
death while still shredding away with his other hand. Pretty soon he had to go
into full fledged battle putting the guitar aside entirely and using both
hands on his numchucks. He was shortly victorious, transitioning into the
victory chicken robot dance. Later he whipped out a second severed head and a
chicken. I had a strange urge to bite the person in front of me while he was doing
all this.
If there was one thing that may have improved on the show at all, it would
have been to see his rippin' bassist solo a bit more. He was a little hottie
and I hated to see him just hold to one note over and over for so long. The
drummer was absolutely insane as well. The drummer brought both life and death
to the show with his horror house antics, wicked piercings, maniacal grin,
and 9,000 degree creepy voice. I thought he was going to jump in the audience,
break someone's neck and boil them onstage for a midnight snack, but no such
luck.
I freaked out and bought like every CD there and a sticker. I was gonna wait and get his
autograph after, but the boys had to work Saturday so we hit the road with me
at the wheel so they could sleep and rest up for work. ~ Coralysa
