B.R.M.C. mellows out at the Wiltern
“WHAT happened to the revolution?” sang Black Rebel Motorcycle Club guitarist Peter Hayes at the Wiltern on Tuesday. That line from the San Francisco trio’s lament “Berlin” referred to the revolution once promised by rock ‘n’ roll, now just a memory of possibilities rather than a culture-changing force.
The song is a highlight from the group’s fourth album, “Baby 81,” itself a return to rocking for Hayes, bassist-vocalist Robert Levon Been and drummer Nick Jago, following 2005’s Americana-flavored “Howl.” But these players have asked questions like this before, as they reminded the initially packed house with the faintly Stooges-esque “Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘n’ Roll” from their 2000 debut.
It’s an inquiry B.R.M.C. is qualified to make, what with Hayes and Been’s old-school ways of swapping vocals and sometimes instruments, not to mention their insistent refusal to sell their songs for use in commercials and on TV shows. At times during their hour and 45 minutes on stage, they even made you think they had the answer.
Instrumentalist-singer Michael “Spike” Keating helped to reproduce the recordings’ multilayered effect, allowing the trio to conjure up great gusts of echoing psychedelia and sexy, pulsating sheets of noise that stretched your head and moved your body.
They sounded traditional notes of sardonic dissatisfaction and earnest protest in tunes such as “Took Out a Loan” and “Weapon of Choice.” Yet their purposeful juggernaut stalled during dips into the mellower “Howl,” which at least provided another dimension to the droning grooves.
Nevertheless, the set proved distractingly shapeless. And if a fair number of your own fans go from hanging on every note to wandering away before the end, how you gonna fire a revolution?
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