Written by Fantasma el Rey
Coming from a land down under to rock the night away is Wolfmother, and if you can’t catch them live, then their new DVD is the thing for you. Please Experience Wolfmother Live is over an hour of the band keeping the classic rock sound alive and moving forward to reach a new crop of fans and hopefully turn them on to their influences. From the start you can hear that these boys were raised on rock with such big names as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin.
After an intro by Jackass’ Johnny Knoxville, Wolfmother hits the stage and doesn’t stop their sonic attack until the last song. From the get-go, Chris Ross (bass/organ), Myles Heskett (drums), and be-afroed Andrew Stockdale (vocals/guitars) hit hard. You can hear all their influences right away, different band styles are prominent on a certain song but it all fades to black as you lose yourself in the tunes from their debut album. Yet far from mere imitation, Wolfmother sounds as if they could have stood next to those giants and made their mark.
From fast and hard-rocking gems like “Dimension,” “Apple Tree,” their big hit “Women,” and my favorite the funk-infused “Love Train” to the slower and darker tunes “White Unicorn” and “Witchcraft” their entire repertoire is loud, heavy, and thunderous. Keeping all classic rock bases covered the sprawling, psychedelic, chord-bending “Mind’s Eye” takes you on a “Chambers Brothers meets Pink Floyd” trip where you can close your eyes and imagine stars streaming past and the gates of doom up ahead as it all comes to a crashing reverberating close, ending with Stockdale playing from his back on the floor.
If the title of the DVD doesn’t bring Hendrix to mind and give you an idea of what’s in store, then the closing number “Joker & The Thief” should do it. The speed of the song makes it seem as if the band’s sound is spinning and winding up like a musical tornado with Stockdale cutting loose on his Jack White-esque vocal bleats while the drums pound to a stop behind him and the organ keys are mashed conjuring images of Ray Manzarek.
Article comments