It’s a brazen transfer to open a set earlier than an viewers anticipating a rock’n’roll present with a brace of space-folk strums. However whereas viewers chatter and the voices of the bar workers often threaten to drown out Californian garage-psychedelicist Ty Segall and sideman Emmett Kelly, the sulphurous magic they conjure on their acoustic guitars can’t be smothered. If a sure wilfulness appears to information Segall tonight, it’s greater than balanced out by how usually his haywire impulses strike gold. The haunted Haight-Ashbury madrigals of Good Morning and heavy comedown vibes of Californian Hills are darkly mystical folks, whereas the Beatles-go-country appeal of Orange Colour Queen showcases songwriting chops unabashedly immersed within the classics.
However, deafening cheers do greet the arrival of Segall’s Freedom Band colleagues, and the plugging in of their amplifiers. Nonetheless, the primal, concise garage-pop nuggets on which Segall surfed to cult standing are largely absent tonight, changed by squalling, heavy rock marathons. An influence quintet with twin lead guitars, and keyboardist Ben Boye lending a proggy undertow, the Freedom Band play loud and so they play lengthy (like their hair). Crucially, they transcend mere 70s revivalism by the gleeful venom with which they assault these songs, and the best way the restlessly ingenious Segall laces even the gnarliest of riff-outs with pop stardust. Whereas a few the sludgier tunes may goal for gold however rating solely grunge, the lysergic biker-rock of Hi there, Hello is reworked into superb powerpop by its acid harmonies and McCartney-esque thrives, whereas Alta’s languid swing between spaced-out Grateful Useless jamming and colossal, slow-building crescendos lends it a cosmic, epic vibe.
Segall returns for a solo acoustic encore of My Girl’s on Hearth, solely this time the voices that earlier threatened to drown him out are actually singing together with him. Moments later, a sprawling, climactic jam of Floydian psych-rock improbably morphs into early Segall fave Girlfriend, like a Magic Eye poster lastly coming into focus. It’s an audacious closing flourish, however clearly that’s simply how this wildling rolls, eternally ricocheting between gnarly guitar solo extra and splitting the heavy-rock atom with excellent pop.
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