thee_blacklisted

Tonight I am fully blown away by how amazing the POLYPHONIC SPREE were live. I've never seen it so crazy or seen so many people jump around and sing along and go entirely nutty apeshit dance around have fun and fall out in my 5 years here in Seattle. My throat hurts from screaming.

The Spree are a 20 piece band who look like insane hippy Jesus freak cult members -- they all wear white robes. Onstage, they are all drinking beer and smiling maniacally and jumping around and their music is pure and mesmerizing and total joy, a mutant cross of the Beach Boys, Olivia Tremor Control, David Bowie, Charles Manson, Up With People, the Langley Project, and a buncha other things. It's huge music -- all the songs build and build to huge climaxes, they have that marching band on acid thing going on with a dozen instruments, there are eight choir singers in the back half of whom are knock-down gorgeous. Wow.

There's a kindergarten-like combination of repetition, simplicity and unrelentingly sincere positivity to their lyrics -- "hey now it's the SUN, and it makes me SMILE" but it's totlaly skewed and weird too. Somehow you know people like Genesis P. Orridge and Gira and whatever other smartypants misanthropes you can think of would fucking love this band...

Holy fuck, they really are that good. I ran into DJ Kento from IQU and he was telling me their Seattle show LAST night was the best show he's ever seen and this guy has impeccable taste. They're on tour, go see 'em. I'm glad they're not really a cult I might be tempted to join!!!