Hey all~

Just got back from the Fantomas concert at the Quest in downtown Minneapolis. And I'm here to let loose my mind....

First of all, the Quest is a very strange club. It has the feel of a mafia type club when you first go in. Some bald black guy in an FBI type suit with the little ear piece checks everyones I.D... but no pat down or search, which is kind of odd, because most of the other clubs in Minneapolis check your pockets at the least. All bouncers at the club wear suits or fancy "club" shirts all-black. Overall, it's really cool 'cuz the bouncers pretty much ignore everyone... and even take empty bottles for you.

The Fantomas tee-shirt booth had several shirts & sweatshirts. 2 main designs... The "Director's Cut" shirt is maroon that has the cover of the cd on the front, and 2 devil heads on the back... the other design had an image of a stick figure laying in a pool of blood with a knife in his back and a gun right next to him, while the back has a big bulls-eye and the words "An Experiment in Terror." They had a hat of the stick figure image as well. No numbered or rare collectibles, though...

The opening band was called "Atomsmasher." Total noise band that plays at about 260 beats per second using sonic noise and samples. Many songs sounded like Fantomas songs that had been chopped up by a madman overdosing on speed. The band is one guy! He comes out on stage, sits down at a desk behind his computer and just starts clicking away like crazy. He pummelled my ears with every possible combination of ultrasonic and subsonic sounds... even more than the Melvins have. Every once and a while he'd reach over and take a sip of his beer, wipe some sweat off his eyes or smoke a cigarette. Clicking away... concentrating on the computer like he was playing a video game or something (which is possible!). For all I know, he was just playing us MP3's of stuff he did. What ever it was, the volume and ferocity was enough to make any noise lover quiver. Fast, crazy shit.

Fantomas came out, and the club was packed. I could only see the tops of everyones heads... and occasionally see a guitar or something. Patton had 3 microphones which he enjoyed screaming through... switching between microphones many many times through-out each song. One microphone looked like a cb microphone... another was obviously rigged up to effects like delay, flange, etc. Mike also played some fucked up keyboard/wind hybrid-instrument, as well as a keyboard/sampler and a theramin. He only used the theramin for about 5 seconds, and then it cut out on him, so he jumped back to the mics. Buzzo was wearing a kinda-hawaiin button up shirt... played ferociously and looked like he was having a lot of fun. Dave Lombardo was set up sideways right at the front of the stage so he was pretty visible. Wow, what a drummer! He really holds the whole band together. The bassist did some wild-ass crazy shit on his bass, too.! Many of the talented scrapings and sqealings of Fantomas came from his hands.

Most of the songs were off the 1st album... probably played about 5 songs from the new album... "Der Golem" was definitely one of them. They also played: Page 1, Page 5, Page 10, Page 11, Page 17... well, at least half of the first cd. =) Patton is fucking amazing.... and he makes really funny faces when he sings, too. Every time he would do an "ooh" or an opera sound... his eyes would be wide open with his eyebrows up... kinda like what a clown might do when looking surprised. The whole set was EXTREMELY tight... even better than the cd.

One of the most memorable moments, was during the long slow cymbal solo that's from the 1st cd. Patton would scream his note, then point at either Buzzo or Trevor who would do a quick 5 second solo... but you could tell that neither Buzzo nor Trever knew who was going to play. Someone in the crowd said they thought it looked like a game show... where the bassist & guitarist had to 5 seconds to complete a crazy solo whenever Patton pointed at them. It was a great improvisation... as the solo's weren't part of the studio version of the song.

It was a great show! Go see 'em if you get a chance...

Later!

Try Stonerr