MY SLEEPING KARMA+GREENLEAF+MAMMOTH MAMMOTH – THE GARAGE- LONDON 19/02/2016
» A musical trip full of acid, spirituality combine with perfection»
The evening starts with MAMMOTH MAMMOTH an Australian band, easy to say but they don’t come exactly around the corner. If an Aussie band makes it out to Europe and America, it’s a good one and they want to show us this evening why they have been going down that road of success, the last couple of years. They have just released its brand new EP Bloody Mammoth Mammoth, which is in the same style as the previous albums: dirty and filthy Rock that comes straight from the guts. Harsh vocals that are perfectly combined with excellent guitar riffs.They open the evening with Dead sea , tasty groovy bass lines and timed drums are on the way.Tonight’s set will go through all MAMMOTH MAMMOTH records, they want show what they are capable of to the audience. Mickey Tucker is a true entertainer, he runs across the stage like a madman and drinks beer non-stop! He even dares to jump into the crowd and starts dancing with the audience. Judging just by looking at the faces of the audience,this band have conquered London’s heart. Last song of the night will be Life’s a bitch making the whole garage vibrate!
And now it’s time to grab something to smoke and get stoned with this unforgettable seventies melodies that GREENLEAF can only bring. Swedish hard-rockers are back after considered a side project back in late 1999, now taking it as a full time band with after numerous line-up changes. On this tour, they are here to show us how their upcoming record Rise Above The Meadow sounds live. Last time they visited the capital, they were supporting CLUTCH in their European Tour, which got them the feel or what they should be playing playing live as well as gather new supporters of the band.
When GREENLEAF took over to the stage, the room was nearly full, We could see loads of fans of the band in the audience. And after seeing their show, we can truly understand what is all this fuss about.
They put an incredible performance,opening with Trails& Passes, they set the audience right on track. Any band that goes through as many lineup changes as GREENLEAF have will always mean that there are some differences between tracks from their different periods. Arvid Jonssons has defenitely give the band the right direction. His presence on stage is notorious,controls everything going on around him, he brings all this good vibes away without expecting anything in return.As well as the Aussies,their fourty five minutes set went through all their bands albums, mainly focusing in their upcoming released. Last song of the set With eyes wide open was absolutely magical, all the audience was singing along and Arvid proved once again that he could sing, indeed very well. A bright future awaits for GREENLEAF , hard work pays off. In the audience we could hear people wanting to hear more songs but no more songs could be played by the four guys from Borlange, as the venue had a really tight curfew due to R&B club in the venue, so unfortunately,no encore for the passionate crowd.
The three bands playing in this tour do have similarities, but musically, they are very different and that something that made us truly interested in this tour, how they were going to fit it. We find that MY SLEEPING KARMA is something completely different from the rest of the bands and I might be wrong…but for a crazy friday night out, I would have changed the order of the bands. Just because of the mood that MY SLEEPING KARMA brings, their art, spirituality,is instrumental music and closer to progressive rock.Their latest album Moksha has been rated as one of the best albums of 2015. They even got to get in the german charts and listen to it live, was something that all of us were really looking forward to experience.
Their show is about to start, band came on stage, they seem to be doing a religious ritual before they start and before we know it…we can hear the first cords of InTENsion…We decided to close our eyes and let the music led the way. The evening was full of climax moments, they bring a lot of intensity to their shows.The haunting, magical and beautiful music grabs the audience by the throat. Everyone in the audience even more party hard rockers had their Zen moment in this gig.MY SLEEPING KARMA proved that it earns its place in the instrumental and psychedelic stoner and progressive scene, they have been carving out a unique niche over their previous four albums. MY SLEEPING KARMA performances are powerful and wonderful. We know is hard to nail instrumental music,but, We bet it took the ones in the audience that have never listened to this band before, a couple songs to really get the feel of what the band wanted to show us, is all about feelings and emotions than about more immediate things like riffs or melody. a fully immersive experience. In terms of set, the band focused mainly in their latest release , Soma and first record called after the name of the band.
Bands like MY SLEEPING KARMA can show us that there is no need for lyrics in music or a performance, the music can speak for itself. Their style it is something that they’ve been perfecting for almost 10 years now.The band decided to close their set with “Hym 72”, a five minutes song that takes the audience to an amazing journey through desert and psychedelic rock, you could see in peoples faces they were definitely enjoying the ride, the power this song has in extraordinary. The strength of MY SLEEPING KARMA comes from the ability of the songs, their perfomance as a whole, awaken feelings in you that didn´t know you could experience, we could tell. This german trio know how to create an mysticism in their shows and music,an Eastern mysticism that you may or may not believe in , but has all the potential to mean something to the audience presence that night.
Overall, was a night where we can say they nearly fill the venue, everyone seem to be very satisfied with every bands performance, which is something difficult to achieve in tours like this one.The length of the performance was perfect for both co-headlining bands, the only thing we would have change is the order of the bands, but other than that,we can proudly say that was a night to remember and if you have the chance to catch any of this bands live, without any doubt, get a ticket for the show.It´s a good time to support bands that bring so much to the Stoner Rock scene.
