After an epic detour around the Night Mass, we meet with a crowd lined up two corners around the block from the venue. Having sniffed around for a few days, I knew a bit of a shortcut to get quickly through the crowd and straight to the media entry to beat the cattle crawl. I perch up not too far from my spot for Beth Gibbons last night, and my photographer heads down to the photo pit at the front of the stage. The venue is filling solidly, and I heard on my way in that it may be over capacity. This should be fun!
A synth intro plays, and a dark figure in a dark blue, maybe black jumpsuit lurks around the stage. As he leaves the stage after telling the crowd to shush a few times, two clowns enter and take place at the drum kit and sampling station. The one at the sample station is also loaded with a sax.
A snare starts cracking and is accompanied by a couple of bike horns. Then some synth stabs kick off the real jams, and what follows is a really weird dub-step jazz mix-up of some sorts that with blasting synth jabs and crazy sax solos.
There is no keeping up with this if you are unfamiliar with the tunes, like I am. It is such a wild adventure that almost sounds like a mix of video game soundtracks from the early 90’s. I am not sure what I’ve got myself into here, but for some reason it is quite enjoyable, as are the constant visuals flashing and flickering behind them. And yes, there was an epilepsy warning before the set.
This is an example of a band’s music matching their name perfectly, and not just because of the Michael Myers style Clown Masks. It is literally like heavy metal, dubstep, jazz, carnival music, all with a 3-piece drum kit, a saxophone, a couple of samplers and keyboards, and some bike horns. And here I was thinking that an hour-long repetitive baptism at a Masonic Temple was the weirdest thing I’d see tonight.
The clowns stop mid set to play some online reactions, which are all less than favourable. Oh, and there is one of them playing a keyboard with a part of their private area… That was a nice touch, as was the epic sax and drum solos that followed.
What follows that is a long-winded repetitive heavy chug number with straight up porn flickering in a subliminal messaging kind of way. It is not very subliminal though, just a little confusing with some images transforming, and then becoming dogs, and then fire and brimstone, and then some German sausage. Yes, you get it as much as I do.
I could not stop watching, but by the end of the show it still did not make sense. I guess that is the whole point, though. And that was Clown Core!
