Sleep at First Avenue

Like a lot of people my age who were too young for Sleep’s original run, I discovered Jerusalem/Dopesmoker through friends who gave me the 1999 CD edition after raving about it. It immediately became a piece of intrigue. The power of that opening riff just hung in the air so heavy like nothing I had heard before. The legend was the ultimate mysterious band whose legend you couldn’t wait to tell the next intrigued person. In 2010 I was lucky to get to see them on a trip to NYC at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple and hearing Matt Pike bust out those opening chords was a dream come true as it echoed all across the cavernous space. Tonight, as I walked from my car to the parking garage stairs out of the skyway, I heard a familiar riff: “Dragonaut” quietly started playing on the skyway sound system only to abruptly shut off as I spun around to try and record a quick video to prove it happened.

Let’s start with the biggest thing here: this is a different Sleep. The band’s return announcement and new album were a shock to many fans (myself included) that Pike was out. Al Cisneros may be the voice of the band but Pike is the shirtless wizard of riffs and the first thing that comes to mind at mention of the band. With Cisneros the sole original member, the new band is rounded out by Dale Crover (of Melvins fame who we just saw in the same room earlier this year) and Bubba Dupree (of punk legends Void). We’ll come back to all this.

As I arrived early at 7:30, there were only about 60 people in the room but 50 of them stood in the merch line that wrapped around the back of the room. At one point it topped out around 75 but impressively it remained that long until Sleep played. The crowd itself skewed middle-aged metalhead but there was a spectrum of metal fans included a full corpse painted duo standing chatting in the corner of the floor.

San Diego band The Schizophonics were an interesting addition to the lineup. We caught them two years ago at Surly Darkness Day and they were pretty much the exact opposite of Sleep: an MC5 inspired (in sound and moves) garage rock that had frontman Pat Beers jumping and sliding across the stage for the entire set. He had it all, the spins, the splits and high flying jumps yet didn’t seem to miss a single note on guitar. It’s impressive. At a few points he jumped down to the floor and moved his act inside the circle that opened in the center. They ripped through 7 songs in about 30 minutes and seemed to have won over the crowd who as a whole probably weren’t familiar with them. Drummer Lety Beers asked for anyone with good Prince stories to meet her at the merch table afterwards.

After a quick 15-minute changeover, Zombi walked on to stage as Toto’s “Big Battle” from the Dune soundtrack played over the system. Despite being a duo, Zombi sounded huge especially when Steve Moore switched from keyboard to a Rickenbacker bass, which echoed Cisneros’ signature bass in both look and tone. They do a great job creating those moody ’70s and ’80s horror soundtrack sounds, fitting somewhere between Goblin and John Carpenter. The room filled out a lot during their set, and the crowd was definitely there for them, with big applause between songs. Zombi strikes me as a studio masterpiece band, one to listen to on record, but they handle being a live duo well.

The changeover cleared out to a rack of guitars and a back wall of amps. There was a gong. Miles Davis played between bands, and the screen stayed up as the crew ran through their checks. I caught the first hint of weed of the night, which made me wonder if this Sleep crowd was even stoned. A crackling static sound and the sound of NASA tapes of astronaut communications played for 15 minutes, enough to make the restless crowd start woo-ing until the band walked in at 10pm sharp.

Cisneros has shaved his beard and lost the wizard look of when I last saw them. In a vintage Rollins Band tee, he looks more record store clerk than stoner doom wizard. Dupree has the Orange stacks but remains very shirted. He’s a perfectly capable guitarist and his live tone was much more thunderous than the new record, but he lacks the wild-eyed Matt Pike flair. Dale Crover was probably the most interesting person to watch on stage and his style was very obvious as he is a very recognizable drummer. There was time where I heard what seemed like flashes of Melvins songs especially in the couple drum solos mixed in with the new material.

Live, the band makes up for what I felt Hempispheres lacked in sound. The band sounded a lot more like their classic thunderous doom and the guitar had the Orange amp thickness that makes the signature sound of the band. You could feel the floor shake as Cisneros hit the right notes. The band focused most of the set on Hempispheres. There were times you could feel Dupree as doing an approximation of Pike’s riffing and there was times you could catch his own flair, especially his very bluesy solos on the new material. On the floor, an extremely slow-motion circle pit took hold over the first half of the set but once the familiar opening of “From Beyond” echoed about 50 minutes into the set in the pit started really moving. “From Beyond” moved to “Holy Mountain” (correction: Holy Mountain opened the set, Hempisphere’s “Whole Wheat Mountain / Well Baked” fit between “From Beyond” and “Dragonaut”. Thank you to Mike!). There was an obvious shift. Maybe it’s that the crowd was not as in to the newer material. Maybe Sleep themselves aren’t as in to the newer material. But the closing trio (correction: duo) of Holy Mountain songs brought out something different in the band. Cisneros seemed looser, he stepped back against his amps frequently as he grooved. Dupree’s solos went from bluesy to squeezing sounds out of his Les Paul. The material breathed and the energy was definitely different. The decently full but not overcrowded mainroom had lost a few people over the course of the evening but everyone in the room at this point was into it. An hour and 15 minutes in we got the opening of “Dragonaut” which brought my evening to a full circle from hearing the echos in the skyway. The set ended at 80 minutes, no encore.

The Holy Mountain songs at the end definitely gave a lot of people what they wanted. It isn’t the Sleep I saw in Brooklyn, but by “Dragonaut” it didn’t matter as much to me and most everyone else in the room. ■

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