I must say I've never been subject to a more shameless display of pandering to the critic. Starting the show with a flash guided tour of everything great in the last forty years (a slide show featuring, the Talking Heads, Bowie, Lester Bangs, Pavement, John Coltrane, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Thomas Merton...yes, these too are my favorite things) with the accompanying glorious tones of the Cocteau Twins' "Ivo", Mercury Rev spelled out to me, personally, 'you are going to amuse yourself tonight and write an unabashedly positive review'.

Useless to resist! They take pop guitar explosions to new places in the sky. Virtually every song ends in crescendo mode, guitar distortion, melodic bass, white light keyboard drone and orchestration, and a drummer who won't quit: perfectly timed and perfectly balanced. While running the show, singer Jonathan Donahue, the madman conductor with the primadonna flourishes is the überintelligent drama queen just sincere enough to make you buy into his 'follow your bliss' evangelism. The projected psychedelic imagery during the show was so impressive that it left two of our party with clear decisions for a tattoo design ('a falling maple leaf' and 'a firing neural synapse'). Great hippy bullshit! Great show! And the sound and projection quality were sublime (a given at the AB, respect!!!).

And to think, I hated the Rev for upwards of five years. 'Goddess on the Highway' man. Those lame 'Wonderwall' chords and Donahue's whine. Nope, didn't work for me. It wasn't until an esteemed soundslike co-editor gently pointed me in the direction of  "Boces" that I finally got it. And now, even the bombast closing trilogy of 'Goddess', 'Dark is Rising', and 'Senses are on Fire' blows me away. But Donahue can't leave it there. He's really aiming for that perfect 10. He starts quoting my fellow Baltimoron David Byrne, 'And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful Belgian wife, and you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here.' Well, fuck you Donahue, as a matter of fact I do ask myself that about every goddamn day.

Cheeky bastard! Fantastic Band!

ANDREW PEASE