Karen Ponzio Photos
Acid Mothers Temple.
Before the show started last Friday night at the Space Ballroom in Hamden, Tom Connolly of the New Haven-based band Witch Hair was sitting at the newly refurbished front bar, talking about the night’s headliners, Acid Mothers Temple, visiting from Japan.
“Every time I see them I feel like they are holding my hand and lifting me up,” said Connolly, “like I’m on a journey.”
The Space Ballroom’s bar, in addition to being rebuilt and remodeled, has a full liquor license now and continues to offer a craft beer selection through 20 tap lines and numerous cans and bottles, as well as non-alcoholic offerings.
House Manager Krystle Olszewski said the front room stage and PA are “ready to go.” A monthly series called First Flights Last Mondays, featuring local acts, is set to have its first show on April 30. Other shows will also be presented on that front room stage by Manic Presents — the first one being on Tuesday, May 1 — and will also include local acts.
Front bar at the Space Ballroom.
Speaking of local acts, the New Haven-based Pangalactic was the first act on this night in the Ballroom. Strains of keyboard sounds wafted into the front bar area, where people were still congregating from the pre-show happy hour, and enticed the crowd toward that larger room and stage for the beginning of our musical trip together. As the audience entered the room, each member of the band — Bob Breychek on drums, Chris Serapaglia on bass, Spencer O’Doy and Dan Steele on guitars — made his way toward his instrument and began to play as if on a mission, building the music collectively.
Pangalactic’s otherworldly vibe encompassed straightforward rock ‘n’ roll, psychedelic jams, and an all-out instrumental love fest. With barely a break the band soared through roughly 30 minutes of mesmerizing music that ended with each string player at the floor manipulating pedals, bringing the set to an end and pulling a rousing reception from the crowd. A couple people shouted out the band’s name as the members exited the stage. We were all now in orbit.
The second act of the night, Yoo Doo Right, from Montreal, Quebec, then took the audience further. The foursome — Justin Cober on guitar, keyboards, and vocals, Charles Masson on bass, Charles Bourassa on synths and electronics, and John Talbot on drums — added punk and new wave layers to their psychedelia, especially Talbot, who thrashed around his end of the stage and banged away at his pedal board as if he was maneuvering the turbulence of sound. Make no mistake, this was a loud show, but the volume made it a more tactile experience as it reverberated in the body, and the audience went along with it as rollercoaster riders often do, belted in but with hands in the air feeling every sway and swoop. The crowd responded wildly to this band, and they returned the love and appreciation. Where were we all headed next?
Acid Mothers Temple may hail from Japan, but the band is well known locally thanks to its numerous visits to the area over the years. The group’s lineup often changes; on this particular tour — a jaunt from March to May known as the Electric Dream Ecstasy Tour — the band includes Kawabata Myoto, Higashi Hiroshi, Jyonson Tsu, Satoshima Nani, and Wolf performing together as Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
This was a guitar-god, frenetic-drum-beating, thick-and-rich-bass-pounding, synth-searing, psyche-sonic performance of the highest caliber. There was a bouzouki. There was a theremin. There were mantras. There were solos and there were walls of sound that leapt and dove and kept the crowd in every state of consciousness imaginable. Some danced along. Some stood mouth agape. Some just closed their eyes and moved in time with it, but either way this band was in command every second of the set. The sound became that much more of a physical force. At one point between songs I was standing in front of a speaker attempting to get a picture, and as the guitar began, the sound hip-checked me over about a foot. By the time the set, and the journey, was over, screams of wow and yes and damn were heard throughout the room as the band left the stage and the audience dispersed.
I saw Serapaglia after the show and he asked me what I thought. I told him I had felt like I had been on a trip through space. “That’s what you were supposed to feel,” he said with a smile. Mission accomplished.
Acid Mothers Temple continue their 2018 Electric Dream Ecstasy Tour of North America with Yoo Doo Right through May. Find more information here.