Photo: Aaron Sammut

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s popularity in Australia is considerable. In Brisbane it is particularly large – even though they’ve probably sold about ten records here, The BJM still manages to sell out The Arena. Of course, some of their increased following can be traced back to the warts-and-all documentary Dig!, which showed its resident genius Anton Newcombe reaching a gob-smacking peak of drug abuse and psychological anguish. The on-stage brawls and general lack of decorum brought about considerable backlash from American critics, with Pitchfork’s recent review of the combo’s chaotic, experimental opus My Bloody Underground particularly scathing.

And while …Underground certainly doesn’t represent the group at their peak, the masses shoehorned into the venue don’t share Pitchfork and co’s revulsion towards Newcombe’s ‘artistic’ temperament and need to create music in an impulsive, unedited fashion.

For fans, The Lovetones are a far from surprising choice of support act, with frontman (and onetime Drop City mainman) Matthew Tow one many former members of the ever-changing Newcombe-led BJM line-up. Musically, they fit as well, playing a combination of the droning, Velvets-fuelled psych-rock beloved of tonight’s headliners, with more pop-centric two-part harmonies.

When the multi-part BJM cast ambles on stage, it is returned tambourine man Joel Gion who takes centre stage, though everyone has at least one eye trained on the mercurial Newcombe at all times, strumming a guitar and vocalising at the far side of the stage, his face largely in profile to the crowd. Predictably, it’s a fairly shambolic performance, but fortunately in a good-humoured rather than malevolent manner. The on-stage spats and brawls with the audience are replaced with jovial non-sequiturs from Newcombe and Gion between songs, and a chaotic blend of garage band anarchy with sudden bursts of inspired, hypnotic focus. Endless laboured tune-ups and regular excursions into atonal improv territory suddenly, and without announcement, give way to vice-tight psych pop tunes, the group locked into a mesmeric and potent groove. For all their difficult reputation as a live act, tonight the BJM are largely here to please, with plenty of highlights from the Tepid Peppermint Wonderland compilation dousing the evening in bohemian joy.

MATT THROWER

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