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Baby Woodrose, Moses Hazy, Helsinki, Tavastia,
1st Sept. 2011
Danish psychedelic garage rock band Baby Woodrose has
been one of my favorites since their 2001 debut Baby Blows Your Mind
so I always do my best to see them live if at all possible. Several
years had passed since they played in Finland the last time but I was
lucky enough to see them at Roadburn in between. The group’s
leader singer/guitarist Lorenzo Woodrose (ex-On Trial, ex-Dragontears,
Pandemonica, Spids Nøgenhat etc.) has in the meantime changed the
lineup and he now has a new rhythm section and a second guitar player.
The more hallucinatory band Dragontears has been put to rest but on
the other hand the folk/mushroom spirited Spids Nøgenhat has been
re-activated after a long pause and is doing shows. But now
we’re talking about the tight rock band Baby Woodrose and the
second gig of their autumn tour at Tavastia, Helsinki.
The support act was Moses Hazy who released their new
album Better Beware early this year. I had not previously
seen this band that has a reputation of an energetic live act but
according to their recorded output their music was only partially down
my alley. I missed some minutes from the beginning and there were not
that many others there from the beginning either, although they seemed
to have some hard core fans too. The band was at their best during the
wildest solo parts, partly due to the fact that the vocals
didn’t really work that well as you might have hoped. One of the
guitarists played some sax from time to time. I did like some of the
songs, but I just can’t get into their soul stuff. The going was
a bit too mainstream in other ways too, but they also had a pinch of
psychedelia in their sound. Their best song, the more melodic
“Sun Machine” was played at the end of the gig and was
without a doubt the highlight of the performance.
When Baby Woodrose hit the stage there was already a
nice crowd in the hall and more people arrived during the gig. The set
included both tight garage rock blasts and more melancholic, melodic
and little more peaceful songs and the whole worked just perfectly.
The set list included as many as seven songs from the debut album and
“Nobody Spoil My Fun” and “What a Burn”
started off the gig with straight-forward, 60’s styled hard
psych rocking. Perhaps the reason for focusing on the early material
was the spring release of Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers
album that includes Lorenzo’s original Baby Woodrose demos. The
two guitars created a great, powerful wall of fuzz although an organ
would have been a nice bonus for some songs... The single track
“Disconnected” from the Money for Soul album is
stylistically quite close to Hellacopters or Flaming Sideburns and the
audience always loves it. Personally, I prefer the more psychedelic
title track from 2007’s Chasing Rainbows album.
One of the highlights was perhaps Baby
Woodrose’s most stoner rock styled piece, the heavy
“Volcano”. Fierce going! It was great that the
band’s usually relatively short songs were extended live on
their jamming solo sections and Lorenzo really let go on his guitar
like a real rock star! The most memorable of the more sentimental
tunes were especially the sublimely performed “Caught in
a Whirl” and the totally amazing “Countdown to
Breakdown” that got the audience into psychedelic hypnosis. This
was surprisingly the only song they played from the latest, untitled
studio album. The last song of the actual set “Baby Blows Your
Mind” rocked like there’s no tomorrow and made the crowd
scream along and the high-energy encore of two more debut songs
“Right to Get High”/“Living a Dream” was a
killer ending. What a brilliant show! The lightshow was mainly just
the usual stuff but on the other hand when the psychedelic bubbling
effects kicked in on some track it was all the more effective. The
band’s main sound guy Ralph is unfortunately quite ill now (get
better soon bro!) so he couldn’t take part in this tour. The new
guy was anyway well aware of what a psychedelic garage rock band
should sound like and was evidently enjoying the show himself. You
don’t usually see a sound guy moving so much to the music...
Thanks for the set list, by the way! I will now share it with the rest
of the world:
1. Nobody Spoil My Fun
2. What a Burn!
3. Disconnected
4. Chasing Rainbows
5. Let Yourself Go
6. Pouring Water
7. Volcano
8. Caught in a Whirl
9. Roses
10. Pandora
11. Honey Dripper
12. Countdown to Breakdown
13. Lost You in My Mind
14. Baby Blows Your Mind
15. Right to Get High
16. Living a Dream
Baby Woodrose’s Love Comes Down that was
originally released only in Scandinavia in 2006 will be re-released
next month and the 500 first vinyl copies will come with an exclusive
7" single. So this is a must-have even if you already have the
original vinyl... The band is also working on a new album that will be
released next spring. I just can’t wait!
http://babywoodrose.wordpress.com
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