Sleepy Sun
Friday, June 19, 2009
Great American Music Hall
Better than: Black Mountain + Brightblack Morning Light + Black Sabbath
The members of
Sleepy Sun had barely taken the stage last night, and the dudes behind me were already
stoked. "Oh my God," one of them started repeating to his friend. "Oh my
God." The guy sounded like he was peaking, and he still had a good hour of Sleepy Sun's light show, face paint, stage smoke, and orgiastic wails to experience. But then, maybe he was just letting everyone within earshot know a little early that this performance was gonna be an all sensory event.
And really, it was the sort of concert where you felt kinda high just being there--despite the fact that the band's parents and white-haired relatives were lining Great American's balcony, when they weren't slow dancing on the floor to the lullaby ballads. When Sleepy Sun is on stage, they mellow out their their stoned soul and desert blues to what I'd call an "underwater headbanging" pace, stretching out the heavy riffs far as they'll go; quieting the stage cacophony down to a bare, aching vocal multiple times within a song; and otherwise filtering their repertoire through a haze of sludgy melodies and chilling harmonies that are also peaking all over the place.
