A.ma.zing. I've been having long, serious conversations with myself to find out if this really is the case, or if it was the two and a half pints of coke I'd drunk, but I am thinking that this may well have been the best gig I have ever been to. One of those nights where you wonder how you can possibly walk into an air-conditioned lobby the next morning, and let the lift doors close behind you. There's a life out there to be lived, hands to be clapped, feet to be stomped.
Such are the cruel temptations of live music.
My own incredible profundity aside, however, Megafaun are truly one of the best bands you could hope to see live. Dry the River supported and I had actually quite liked these young spindly minstrels (the singer had a strong voice, was suitably riddled with nervous ticks and, though a few parent/forest/bible references too many, his lyrics were lovely and clever). But when the musical equivalent of the Marx Brothers came on, the anguished singer/songwriter act suddenly looked really quite silly. These guys had no time for maudlin. They stood there like they had just walked into your bedroom and wanted to get you out of bed with a tune. Didn't care what you thought, just gave you their hearts on a plate and let you make what you will of it. Made me crave America, where men are men and you are who you are and if you want to sit and tell a stranger on the train about your divorce and your hernia operation, then you do, and that's that.
They started with some kind of weird but mind-blowing prog-folk thing, long, with gratuitous one-note guitar solos. Sounds odd but really worked, started slow then built and built until suddenly you found your heart had stopped. Up to this point you think they're an intense bunch of musos who take their art very seriously indeed. Until they open their mouths. (And the great thing is they're all as vocal as one another.) They chatted about shoes, hats, the Slaughtered Lamb occult light... actually I can't remember what else but I remember laughing a lot. None of them seemed to have any ego at all, just a willingness to have a laugh and play some tunes.
They finished by unplugging their instruments and huddling at the front singing gospel songs, so that no matter where you were in the room you felt like you were round the campfire with a few mates. At one point I thought we might never leave the room again because none of us would let them stop playing. Me and Michael went up to them like schoolchildren afterwards telling them how much we loved them, we couldn't help ourselves. Phil Cook the banjo player said with a massive grin on his face, "we're just friends having fun", and actually you'd believe him.
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