Dublin five-piece band Meltybrains? headlined the Bowery in Rathmines this Friday as part of the pub’s Oktoberfest series of gigs. The combination of a very trendy young crowd, the pirate ship décor and the dirndl-dressed staff made for quite an unusual spectacle indeed.
The band took the stage in their trademark all white outfits and began their set with what would be more accurately described as a piece of performative sound art than as a piece of music. Its closing section created such a din that it became impossible to distinguish the instruments from each other, or, indeed, discern any semblance of harmony or rhythm. With the scene firmly set, the band continued with songs of a similar but less cacophonous nature.
Having seen Meltybrains? once before at Body&Soul in 2015, I was surprised by how heavy their sound had become in the meantime. However, as much as the music wasn’t to my taste, the performance was top class; each of the band members dancing around the stage in berserk fashion much to the delight of the crowd. Illuminated by occasional strobe lights, they looked nearly like a segment from Picasso’s La Guernica.
About halfway through the set the band dropped their most famous (and probably their best) tune, ‘The Vine’. A light-hearted, groovy bopper with funky vocal effects and an almost cheesy drum machine track this song proved to be a turning point in the gig. A conga line began to snake its way through the audience as the band members put down their instruments while the drum machine played on, climbing onto the rafters above the stage and diving off the stage for a spot of crowd surfing. Following this the heaviness of the first half of the gig was gone, replaced by upbeat tunes that had everyone in the audience dancing with abandon.
Lit mostly from behind, and addressing the audience only once to announce ‘We’re Meltybrains?’, the band managed to create a mysterious stage presence which was further enhanced by the absolute incomprehensibility of their lyrics. Throughout the gig the synth player continued to fling white face-masks with dashes of gold paint on them into the audience so that by the end of the show there were a sizable number of eerily masked faces in the crowd.
Overall, it was a gig of two halves, the noise and the bop. You might fault them for this but for me it this that made the gig so memorable. Never before have I been so utterly bamboozled only to be drawn into such a thoroughly enjoyable boogie. All credit to the band for living up to their reputation and producing a weird and wonderful gig.