Perhaps the only time Wes students have moshed to a 6o-year-old legend in Mickey Mouse pajamas.
On Saturday night, in one of the most bizarre, captivating, and intense performances I’ve witnessed at Wesleyan since Lightning Bolt or perhaps Už Jsme Doma, a golden nugget of blue-bearded wisdom reigned down on Eclectic. It came clad in Mickey Mouse-patterned pajamas and a yellow baseball hat. Its name was R. Stevie Moore.
Backed by three tireless touring musicians, whose articles of clothing came gradually unglued throughout the night, the grandfatherly lo-fi legend performed about two-and-a-half sets of lo-fi pop merged with noise rock, punk, metal, krautrock, avant-garde, and generally ranting into a microphone, telling the young’uns to shut up and listen. Between growling obscenities (“WTF! GTFO!”) and shouting out “all the bitches in the house,” Moore also described Eclectic as “the best crowd with the worst P.A. system ever.” If the P.A. malfunctioned, no one noticed. Moore’s music was too loose, too noisy, too weirdly infectious.
