Metropolis, Fremantle, Australia.

According to my research, Roger Glover of Deep Purple once stated that "heavy isn't about volume, its about attitude". Tonight proves he was half right.

When you're a band that thrives on improvisation that tries to achieve something different each night, then its not unreasonable to rely on the audience to participate and provide impetus and direction. Alas, the place is full of chin strokers. The drummer tries to gesture up some support, but there's a distinct dearth of energy out on the floor. Bastards. I'm up for it and punch my fist even if no one else will.

It's an achingly show start. The sparse crawl of Feedbacker gradually takes shape. I was dreaming of a psych-punk thrash with damning but concise drone bursts that's all over Pink and Akuma No Uta, to contrast the slow death march of Sunn 0))). Its a little ponderous. My impulse to wig-out is dulled by the desolate atmosphere they're attempting to build. It might be helped if the stooge of the house lights could be bothered to turn them out. What's up with that? A prescription entirely comprised of a seventy odd minute crossbreed of Just Abandoned Myself with Feedbacker and a finale of Farewell, even as blissful and perilously overdriven as Farewell is, wasn't quite what the doctor ordered. I'd write something pretty like "a solar flare taking its last breath" if it wasn't so damn heavy. It's somehow like a hypnotic combination of the incredibly beautiful and the incredibly ugly. Chris Morris would understand. Boris strike me, and I have youtube evidence to substantiate this, as the kind of band that gorge on the crowd's animation. It's hardly a bad performance. There's some terrific key changes and sustain that could slay an elephant. But these rigor mortis infected jokers statuing around like emo-cows in a waiting room should be culled. I'm going to randomly start fire-bombing Perth homes if this shit doesn't improve. Despite it all, I'd still slither over broken glass to see Boris in any capacity.

For a few ecstatic moments I'm convinced that Boris have joined Sunn 0))) onstage to form one electro-static behemoth. It's plausible. They recorded together last year. Staring through the thick waves of smoke, and treble tequila shots, its vaguely perceivable that the forearms of these extra members, which aside from the occasional sliver of face is all the flesh visible under heavy monk-style robes, of Sunn O))) and their cabal are in fact caucasian. Post-event research reveals Sunn 0))) have recruited several minions to muscle up still further their assault. Like that's anything other than unnecessary and dangerous. Boris might feed on the audience's desire. Its doubtful that Sunn 0))) can even see us let alone hear us, such is the density of smog. My perfect positioning between the house speakers means nothing now as they're dwarfed by Sunn's monitors. Its like a stonehenge convention. The Boris drummer does join for a while, kneeling at a gong with maximum drama, then surfing the crowd to a vantage point of a lofty speaker stack. It takes me sometime to comprehend he's intermittently screaming. The vocal is so processed its more like another layer of static. He holds the microphone stand out over the assembly to capture some more cries of the damned, but its complete shell-shock out here.

There's no respite. 90 minutes of doom drone, one continuous chunk, no rhythm section: presumably improvised. More than impressive; just as you think it can't become any harder they find an extra level of volume or pitch to torture us with. I've had my limbs, organ and brain vibrate and buzz with the physical impact of sound before, I've never had rattle. With no beat dancing is unlikely; fainting is a more viable option. I stretch out my limbs to absorb the forcible violation, surfing various body parts the aural tide. Somewhere in the mist a jawa rhythmically intones indiscernible mantras into another processed mic. It could be any language, it could be any form of witchcraft from under the cowl. After about an hour some members of the congregation start to slowly shuffle backwards, inserted fingers futilely waggling in ears. Some head for the back, out of the blast zone, taking meager cover where it can be found. Almost every single person in my vicinty has had their fingers to their ears at some point.

By the time its finished it feels more like a night in an abattoir rather than a concert. Still shaking we locate the exit. Why the club has sunk several feet into the earth is unknown. It must have. Gliding down the street I have to shout at a friend how staggered I am at these fantastic soundwaves resonate and follow you a whole block, even after they finished playing five minutes ago. Quite what happened to my ears, and brain, I can't say, but I'm told the amps were turned off before we left.

Pure Hell. In all the best ways possible.

Transcribed by ReverendChris

Some good eggs uploaded a couple vids of the gig to youtube. This features only a red wine glass, I'm assuming its not blood, left on the edge of the stage. The demented sloshing gives you some idea of volune. The other clears up the mystery of where the vocalist disappeared to. He was rolling around on the floor. It also gives a pretty good indication as to how foggy the affair was. To get some idea of the number and size of monitors Sunn were using, check this out. Not from Perth but the sound is a little clearer.