LIVE SHOW REVIEWS
Sub Pop 20: Comets On Fire
Photo by Shawn Brackbill
"Have you ever been on a soccer team with Atila the Hun? Please welcome to the stage 'Mr. Comets On Fire'!"
At first, I thought this was an unusual way to begin a set, but it totally went with the tone of this whole performance. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. Comets On Fire started with a lot of heavy organ feedback and then busted into a Hendrix-style guitar frenzy with many high tremolos and arpeggios, all "meedly-meedly meedly-meedly-meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" then broke down into a very "Foxy Lady" style strut. The vocals hit me on a very Mars Volta kind of level, except you know, not latin.
Comets on Fire are a four-piece; however, there seemed to be a fifth band member whose sole purpose was to jack around with an effects box. He sure was into it though. How do I get that job? No song seemed to truly begin or end; it was like they were perpetually in the middle of a song with all this heavy guitar madness, then some lyrics kicked in.
I don't know, I may have been too tired and hot at this point to really "get" what was going on here, musically. It's aggressive and definitely psychedelic, with acid trippy drumming and lots of high-pitched screamy vocals, but the whole thing kind of put me on edge. The crowd seemed to be feeling the same way, everyone looked like they were being blown away, but not in a good way, everyone seemed kind of rooted to where they stood, unable to move, unable to walk away. I was a little relieved when it ended...
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heather b said on July 14, 2008:
I totally expected some people would disagree with me - I'm glad to hear other people enjoyed it!
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imaginary dana said on July 14, 2008:
That IS a good gauge, @Jflores. Who were the topmost sellers this weekend?
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Jflores said on July 14, 2008:
Fleet Foxes as expected, but also Vaselines earned a BUNCH of new fans and it was obvious why, they really killed their set!
It was super cool when youngsters were turned onto new/old music and then coming to buy it. Les Thugs and Red Red Meat were definitely in that category as well as Eric's Trip which was truly great to see back together and having a great time.
We also sold a bunch of Tad, which was amazing considering that they didn't even play the festival.
I am still scratching my head trying to figure out how I could call this weekend Work!
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Levi said on July 14, 2008:
Yeah, there is a guy who just tweaks an Echoplex for the whole set. Back in the day (according to a friend from the Bay Area), when they played much smaller, closer venues, they would run pretty much all of their instruments and vocals through this one Echoplex, with this one guy twiddling the knobs, resulting in a cyclone of swirling proggy delay goodness. I don't think Marymoor was the best venue for that sort of effect (obviously), but I thought they sounded great.
Heather, if you're interested in a little perspective, here's a review I wrote some time ago for the now-defunct Mercurial Sound of their album Avatar: http://mercurialsound.com/archives/new-music-comets-on-fire-avatar
I'm not saying it's a great review or anything, but it might give you a different angle on the band.
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Reviews
Jflores said on July 14, 2008:
hmmmmm...I totally (and respectfully) disagree with the lovely and talented Heather.
I thoroughly enjoyed their set and the best gauge of how the band was received is the resulting cd's and Vinyl being snapped up back at the Easy Street Booth. I know the band made a legion of new fans and this set was certainly in my top 10 performances, which considering the competition, ain't too shabby!