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Rating: Let’s start from the end: I shook hands with Chris Spencer. And I also took a picture with him, although I later remembered I have a crappy phone, and the camera... Well, equally so. In short, you can't see a damn thing or almost.
Now I can start from the beginning.
The most spectacular thing about the whole event was certainly my triple backward sommersault with carpi twist doing the helicopter with... You’re free to imagine, to find the 10 euros for entry. Once found, I say goodbye to my house and head to the Magnolia; once there, I say bye to my dear little car and welcome the legendary microclimate of the hydrodrome and its thousands of mosquitoes, which soon would have feasted like it was Christmas plus a few more holidays all crammed into two and a half hours.
“Yeah, but who cares? Tell us about the concert!”
And you’re quite right.
Before the Unsane, a band called Filth In My Garage was supposed to play, a band I had never heard of before, and didn’t hear even now as I arrived too late for their performance. So if you've opened this just to find out about them, the best I can offer is a shrug.
Fantastic! I position myself to the side of the stage and who do I see? The legendary Chris perched on the steps with a cigarette! I was about to approach him to say some nonsense (and take advantage of it to bum a smoke) when a shady figure beats me to it to tell him something about how they should be starting. I handle it quite well and position myself nearby to do some industrial espionage on their setup while still enjoying the concert.
They get on stage, some nonsense, a few words, a timed beat and... BOOM! Suddenly the entire place, spectators included, is sucked into a skin-stripping vortex, made of disturbing images and sounds (or better yet, noises) unbearable to the human ear. For this reason, the only ones who get it are the members of the band themselves: not of this world.
Every note is a shard of glass straight in the eye, every song a flowerpot planted up the ass without passing “Go.” An unending delirium of senseless violence that consumes and is consumed in very slow moments.
Chris Spencer is... what the hell do I know what he is, he simply kicks ass, aided by a Telecaster and a banged-up distortion that’s seen too much, but which certainly isn’t done yet. Dave Curran, more than playing it, tortures his bass to make it emit the most horrendous sounds you’ve ever (not) endured. Vinnie Signorelli has at least ten spare drumsticks in his pocket, I’m amazed he only had to replace one, and I’ve said it all.
They are three, but they make noise for thirty. Theirs isn’t any ordinary wall of sound, it’s the Berlin Wall at the peak of its glory.
And, again out of the blue, the three come down from the stage and sit where I (and someone else) was watching.
Random guy 1: "One more!"
Random guy 2: "Come on maaaan, one more song please! one more, two more songs!"
Random guy 3: "Checcheeez come on, get back up and one more!"
Chris Spencer: "Minkia what a pain, alright guys, they want one more, we’ll give them one more, so they stop nagging, damn!"
And then they begin to reattach the instruments, and then... and then nothing. They play two more songs causing havoc below the stage like never before during the evening, and then the show is truly over.
I remain below the stage and wait for them like a stalker waits for their victim, and we return to the prologue of the review: I shook hands with Chris Spencer and took a photo with him. And finally, I bummed the highly coveted cigarette because during the evening I bummed many, but you won't tell me it’s the same as asking Chris Spencer of Unsane! I even ask him to sign my diary on the 27th, as a commemoration of the event.
And then Dave also came down from the stage, and I grabbed him too to talk about highs but mostly lows. I won his attention by telling him how I also play that magical instrument and I took the opportunity to ask him what distortion he uses for such a cool-but-ugly sound. After a bit of chat about how vintage Rats are indeed cooler than reissues, I remember I should get going, so I ask him for his signature too and I go in search of the last member because there’s no two without three. I find him talking to a bunch of people until finally, he is free, and I start bothering him too with my nonsense. In the end, he even dedicates his signature in my diary without me asking, and I can finally consider myself satisfied.
And after all these experiences, I say goodbye to my dear mosquito friends (who after last night will love me for life) and head back to my car and home, with a lighter wallet and a heavier heart.
(P.S.: Amidst all this nonsense, did I tell you that Chris Spencer spits worse than a llama? And watching him against the light, I could even see the particles dispersing in the atmosphere! What a show!)
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