August 13, 2001

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club : Boston TT The Bear's

Rock'n'roll reborn: BRMC rev up the riffs...

"Whatever happened to our rock'n'roll?" In these days of whining and Axl Roses, it's a fair enough question. But then again, it is one in the morning and 100 degrees. The club's ceilings are low. The floor is packed and sloshed with beer. And here are three shag-haired, black-clad upstarts from San Francisco, radiating impressive cool on a tar-black stage under white-hot light. It seems that, among many other things, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club understand the art of the rhetorical question.

Cos this is it: the modern age, the return of dark, dangerous, drugged-out, sexy, and spiritual, fuck-off rock'n'roll. Yep, the ash of the stubbed-out cigarettes of the late '60s have been re-rolled and relit. And as The Strokes (who opened for B.R.M.C. in Boston a few short months ago) try not to exhale, while The White Stripes inhale as deeply as they can, the already-peaking B.R.M.C. wait calmly for the next hit.

It's that guitar crackle groove of the Jesus & Mary Chain or The Dandy Warhols without the dysfunction or ego. Guitarist Peter Hayes steers 'Red Eyes And Tears' from white noise into a stalker's groove with calm menacing control, his hypnotic, Love & Rockets-style singing matched by his indifference to the cigarette smouldering on his amp. Add bassist Robert Turner, sporting an Echo And The Bunnymen mushroom haircut, laying out the
murderous 'Rifles', with sublimely sedated restraint over Nick Jago's heartbeat drumming and the result is frighteningly killer.

B.R.M.C. do Verve-ish psychedelic epics ('Awake'), exile-on-mainliner-street-type blues ('Spread You Love'), spoon-bending Spiritualized talk of Jesus ('White Palms' and 'Salvation'), and roll out promising new songs ('High Low') and some first-rate "B-sides" that explain
Noel Gallagher's glowing endorsement. But, it's 'Whatever Happened To My Rock'n'Roll (punk song)' that sums it all up. The riff revs loudly before it pops into gear, careening full speed around a corner - barely on two wheels. Hayes and Turner punctuate each other's lines, shamelessly shouting,
"Rock'n'roll!" after each one. "I fell in love with a sweet sensation/I gave my heart to a simple chord/I gave my soul to a new religion". There it
is. Born Again. Rock'n'roll!

Ben Wolford