Psychedelic evening in Tivoli de Helling

The last time I saw OM live was during Roadburn 2007. They were playing on the main stage of 013, Tilburg. It was kind of weird to see them playing on such a huge stage, where even the Red Sparowes (8 guys) had enough space to move around comfortably. I thought the 2 guys did an awesome job though. They produced enough sound to make your chest-bone drone along with their music.

It is clear though, that OM is much more enjoyable in a small venue like Tivoli de Helling. Christiaan and I arrived at 8:15 pm and were just in time for the first artist of the evening: Lichens. The crowd was awesome, some people made me feel like I was back in the 70ies. Hippies aren’t dead! I also saw some regular metal folks, guys in their 40ies, punks and the ‘rest’ (I consider myself to belong in the ‘rest’ category).

I had no idea who Lichens were, but it turned out to be one guy only. If I have to make an educated guess as to where he came from I’d say India [research on Last.fm, he is from US]. He had cool hair, standing straight up. He looked like he had taken some kind of drugs, or a lot of drugs at the same time. He didn’t say a word, just mimicked that he wanted the lights turned as low as possible, then he nodded and began his show. He had a guitar, a mic and some equipment to loop sounds. He began by playing a super relaxed tune on his guitar, but the sound was very aerie, mysterious; not your usual metal-guitar-sound. He started to loop the sounds, a loop being about 10 seconds. After he had made a sort of wall of sounds (it still made harmonic sense, but that was about to change), he fetched the mic and ‘sang’, or rather hummed some looping melodies. All the while you could see the guy was totally into it, in trance. The whole thing reminded me of one project we had when I was still attending the conservatory in Rotterdam. We played music from Bali on the gamelan, and it was also in this pattern. The circle, the loop, went on and on, everybody had his role and you felt in a trance while playing your gamelan. It was an awesome experience, so I could really understand how the guy felt. After about 20 minutes the music started to change in character. It became more and more a-tonal, drone, noise. Uncountable layers of loops were over each other by now and the guy was going crazy with his mic. I felt a little uncomfortable, was this still music? Suddenly, it was over. He got up and left. And the audience was left in confusion. This was the one and only time that I was in a metal crowd and everybody was silent during a show! The whole song took 30 minutes total, but it felt like a moment. It was awesome!

Some other friends also arrived, we chatted over a drink while the stage was fixed for OM to enter. After 2007 I have never checked up on their new stuff, so I was curious. They entered the stage, and at the first note I knew it would be well. OM consists of a drummer and a bass-player only, the latter is also the singer. They produce something you can call a crossover of doom, stoner, drone, psychedelic. It is hard to explain, see the movie below!

Live capture:

They played 4 songs total. That sounds weird, but each song is at least 10 minutes long, if not longer. The last song I finally recognized: Pilgrimage. It is such an awesome song. It reminds me a lot of the early Pink Floyd albums somehow. These guys are totally relaxed. They took their time between songs, chatted some with the audience. Lichen was supporting them and it was really fun to watch that guy. He was playing the tambourine, and he also did this with 100% concentration and conviction. Awesome to see. I enjoyed myself immensely during the show and was really glad I went.

After the show Blackout would start, a drum’n bass party. I would love to have stayed, but my alarm was set to go off at 7:30 am the next morning so I decided to take leave. It was a great evening and Lichen was certainly the hero of the evening.