First off this is a band that I would think any fan of rock music should be able to find something to like about. www.particlepeople.com/media.html Heres a cool vid with satch - http://youtube.com/watch?v=mb_sjUiKr00 Anyway, so the show was april 14th at the Magic Stick in Detroit. It's an alright venue, not the greatest setup and kinda small but usually the sound is decent. That was certainly the case here as the stage was cramped with all their gear. First up was the opening act, Boombox. Just a DJ and a guitarist who looked like ali g and occasionally sang a bit. It was allright, ali g was pretty good and played clean and funky with lots of wah. The DJ could have been a CD for all it mattered. The background stuff was fine but it was very repetitive and uninteresting. They had an hour long set that was more or less the same shtick the entire time. Particle came on about 15 minutes later. The place was jammed now but I managed to get right to the front of the stage and slightly to the left near the keyboard player. There was this 50 year old longhair dude who got the center spot and he required about the space of 3 people as he madly flailed about and "rocked" out for almost the entire 3 hour set! At the begining every other person there seemed to whip out a camera phone or other device and took shots for the first 15 minutes or so. Pretty annoying but whatever. I can't give an honest opinion of the overall sound because from my location I was more hearing stage volume than the PA. It was a pretty good mix overall, keys were a little quiet (aren't they always?) They played in a half circle setup with the keys on one side, drums on the other and guitar and bass player in the middle. Really an ideal setup for a jam oreinted band as they could all see each other and signal changes etc. Also I got to hear the raw sound of the drums which was pretty badass, the guy is a brute of a player, and really led the direction of things. So yeah the drummer was fantastic, as were the other 3 guys. Really all excellent musicians and you could tell the whole time they were just having a blast being up there, really enjoying the music and great vibe from the crowd. I could see pretty much anything I wanted to from my point, I could have even played the keys or hit some FX buttons I was so close hah! The guitarist played a PRS McCarty Hollowbody through a hi-watt head and marshall cab. He had about 8 or so FX pedals, and used them sparingly. Tone was good, not to loud, distorted, sharp, or muddy. Same with the bass player, just good solid tone and great playing. The keyboard guy had a nice setup. An MS2000 handled most of the synth work, while an older moog (mini I think) got less action! He also had an old rhodes electric piano and a hohner clavinet which sounded fantastic. A roland VK7 organ, which didn't get much use and was mostly too quiet, and some rompler/workstation keyboard that he used for acoustic piano sounds mostly, sounded decent. So they played for about an hour and a half then seemlessly had boombox come out and they jammed with them for a bit, then particle left one by one and boombox played for a bit and the keyboard guy jumped in the crowd and watched. The bass player came out and started to jam with em, then the guitarist, then the keyboard player got back on stage and started playing the drums as good as any bar band drummer. Then the particle drummer came onstage and they both played the kit simultaneously. This was all quite badass, off the cuff and sounded fantastic, certainly a highlight of the evening. Then they seemlessly integrated back into normal particle mode and back on with the show! Another couple hours of playing including a rippin encore. Overall I give the whole spectacle a 9/10 Definitely worth 15$ Don't miss these guys if you get a chance!
Boombox is sweet, Ali G is Donna Jeans son. Either way particle tore my face off the othere day and Im still looking for it.
Got a chance to see particle at dunegrass here in michigan as well and i gotta agree great band hope to see them again here in the future
