THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE . Photo – Dan Turner

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I was very excited when I first heard that psych-rock veterans & drone lords The Brian Jonestown Massacre would be returning to our shores. I hadn’t seen them for quite some time and they had released a plethora of albums during that period. Ever since founder & frontman Anton Newcombe moved to Berlin just over 10 years ago, he has been extremely prolific. Their 17th studio album ‘Something Else’ is a nod back towards their roots of 60’s psychedelia woven seamlessly into 90’s shoe-gaze with a good dose of feedback to boot.

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THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE . Photo – Dan Turner

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Newcombe is no stranger to controversy and has had a reputation in the early days of The Jonestown Massacre of losing his temper with bandmates & occasionally, the audience. I had seen them play three times in the past and hadn’t witnessed any of this behaviour but I still headed off to the Metro Theatre with a little trepidation. It was a dark and cold Sydney evening as I stepped into the venue and a welcome respite from the elements. There already was a crowd of eager fans on the dance floor of the venue waiting for the support act EKKO to arrive on stage.

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EKKO . Photo – Dan Turner

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The lead guitarist entered the stage bathed in a luminous orange glow and began to drown the theatre in waves of distortion that lapped relentlessly over the audience before looping back on themselves. The rest of the band appeared from the wings and wasted no time in playing an enthralling 30 minute set of psych-indie rock fused with singer Shayne Wilson’s haunting vocals, that gave a glimpse of what this five piece from the South Coast of NSW were potentially capable of.

A good three quarters of an hour later, Newcombe and his six bandmates walked out on stage and went straight into We Never Had A Chance followed by Whatever Happened To Them and then their latest single, Hold That Thought.  Jonestown percussionist and original member Joel Gion moved confidently around the stage throwing some hypnotising moves with his tambourine and it felt like the 90’s all over again, especially when they played Sailor and Who?. There was some light banter to the crowd from Newcombe early on in the set but it was when he made a heartfelt speech about Anthony Bourdain’s tragic death that things started to take a turn for the worse.  After he finished his story there was a lot of hollering & jeering from the audience and he then went on a tangent about how that kind of behaviour resulted in the current lock out laws that we have in Sydney, which in turn created anger with certain parts of the crowd.

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THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE . Photo – Dan Turner

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After a couple of restarts of songs and finger pointing to his bandmates, the cracks were appearing to show and he finally lost it with a member of the audience and made a completely inexcusable, crass, rape joke. The rest of the band, and for that matter, I would hope most of the crowd were mortified and several people walked out. From then onwards, there was an eerie calm to the Metro Theatre and the band (including Newcombe) just wanted to play some music. They continued on with Anemone, Servo & ended with Yeah Yeah before the guitars were laid out by the amps to create a wall of feedback and the band left the stage.

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Check out Dan Turner’s photos of the show here

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Connect with The Brian Jonestown Massacre

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AMNPLIFY – DB