Lightning Bolt Makes Noise, Blows Fuse, Makes More Noise

Brian + Brian + Eclectic = !!!!!

This wasn’t a dream. Lightning Bolt played at Wesleyan.

Late Friday night, following spirited sets by Wes bands The Parents and The Japanese, the infamous Providence-based noise duo took to the stage “guerrilla gig” pit in the corner of the room, dousing an electrified Eclectic audience in frenetic bursts of brutal power-noise so dense you could feel the reverberations in the pit of your stomach, sputtering like “a single span suspension bridge in a violent earthquake.” And all that racket from only two guys and one first name: Brian Gibson, wielding his detuned bass guitar through a dizzying array of pitch-shifting FX units, and sweat-drenched Brian Chippendale, launching frenzied warfare on a minimal drumset through a gruesome face-mask best described as something a “serial killer clown might wear” (link). (Chippendale also sings through a mouth-held telephone receiver, vocals like David Yow turned panicked kidnapping victim. Listen, listen.)

Amidst a sickening swirl of flickering strobe lights, moshing, and—at one point—a blown power fuse, this duo performed possibly the tightest, and unarguably the loudest, set I’ve heard at Wesleyan. Acclaimed albums Wonderful Rainbow and Hypermagic Mountain demand no less. If I’m late in throwing up this post, consider it a recovery period: three days for your ears to stop ringing.

Super-thanks to ZA ’13 and Eclectic for making this show a reality. Full image gallery after the jump.

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[photos / me, Rachel Pincus ’13]