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GOAT made their North American live debut at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Holy Wave (pics, review)

photos by PSquared Photography; words by Bill Pearis

GOAT @ MHOW, 4/23/2013
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The lights went down and I think half the crowd lit up, as Music Hall of Williamsburg instantly reeked of pot. GOAT, Sweden’s premier voodoo disco psych band, took the stage for their first-ever North American show and the packed house was primed to get their minds blown. Dressed in robes and tunics and wearing a variety of masks and hoods, the band came out and without a word to the audience started laying down the fuzzed-out, conga-driven grooves. The band were about as stoic as Oasis, but sounded fantastic and were tight as hell. (The Swedes really excel at this type of thing.) Luckily, the two female masked singers made up for it by dancing up a storm. There was also some dude in front of me doing the hippy dance the whole show but I’m trying to forget that.

We got most of last year’s World Music, including “Let it Bleed” which featured a skronky guest saxophonist who looked like he just left the Sun Ra’s Ark. GOAT also played both sides of their upcoming Sub Pop single. Apart from wishing the show was somewhere smaller and sweatier (like Glasslands where the show was originally supposed to happen), they definitely met my expectations for this show, even if my mind remained intact.

Opening the night was Austin’s Holy Wave who definitely in the Brian Jonestown Massacre / Black Angels school of post-VU psych. They were good and their set was definitely aided by the oldschool trippy oil-based visuals from the folks at Drippy Eye Projections. Bear in Heaven kept things weird as between-set DJs.

Both GOAT and Holy Wave will play Austin Psych Fest this weekend. More pictures from last night’s MHOW set are below.

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