Went to check out Wooden Shjips and Earthless at Cafe DuNord in San Francisco. Your typical San Francisco rock scene. PBR longnecks and scarves aplenty. Eyes opened (that's funny if you say it out loud) and we caught a few songs. They were pretty good but the mix wasn't all that great for them. Sort of a mix of modern rock with space-rock jamming thrown in.
Earthless, the headliner, was just ridiculous. I have the self-titled record, and from hearing that it's pretty clear everyone in the band is super talented, but it's the guitar player who is a shredder of the highest order. Not so live -- it's all about the drummer. He builds the jams so creatively, there are 4 or 5 huge peaks over the course of their set, all telegraphed by him, and the strings have to set themselves up to catch up with the drummer. Mario Rubalcaba is his name, he has pedigree.
(Listen: Earthless "Godspeed (edit)" MP3)
It's really amazing what happens when you stack three guys in a band who are totally able to lead a jam with confidence and then just watch them interact for an hour. it was really mindblowing. there was one big "bring it home" riff near the end of the set that was so totally huge... and this yell like a group howl came out of the crowd cause everyone was feeling it. And yes, just under one hour, no breaks, no vocals, no encores. just major domo intercourse.
Wooden Shjips played in the support slot and were solid. The guitar wasn't loud enough, but the crowd was attentive and not chatty, which helped you hear everything. They are a pretty adventurous band usually, with 10-minute songs that are basically one groove. Krautrock fans would love them. They played some shorter songs last night, though, maybe to squeeze more in overall. They had heads nodding and they definitely had people dancing.
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