The sky-high price of live music in recent years has seen Australia become a hotspot for international bands looking to recoup some of the income they’re losing to filesharing. That’s great ‘coz it means punters now get to see more bands, right? Well, not really. At the higher prices, most keen fans can’t afford to see any more bands than they were seeing before. Furthermore, the bar has inadvertently been raised. With more bands now competing for that precious slice of income, fans find themselves picking and choosing their gigs very carefully… and expecting more in the process.

There were two overwhelming reasons to shell out $60 to see Mastodon at the Palace on Friday, January 28: it was the band’s first time here as a headliner and press releases were leading with the promise of a “two-hour set”; those same press releases were also boldly declaring Mastodon would play most recent album Crack the Skye in its entirety. Both are rare occurrences, enough to drag even the most corn-fattened couch slob from the dank shadows of his sandalwood-incense sharehouse and down to the Palace to experience something that just might be talked about for years to come. Alas, it’s likely that this particular visit by Mastodon will dominate conversations for all the wrong reasons, but let’s start with the gig itself.

A single support act opened the night, the ubiquitous but undeserving The Day Everything Became Nothing who put on a show that was pretty much identical to every other show they’ve played this millennium. Undoubtedly TDEBN is the most well-connected band in the country ‘coz there’s no way this band’s downtempo take on post-apocalyptic groovegrind is good enough to win such coveted support slots on its own (first Cannibal Corpse and now Mastodon). Not only are there countless other Aussie bands who would match Mastodon more adequately, but TDEBN’s point of difference (old school death grooves with unremarkable rock-beat drumming and no double kick) is only entertaining for the band’s first three songs. After this, the set deteriorates into one long regurgitation of those same techniques as the audience shifts its collective weight to stave off foot pain and more than a little boredom. Worse, on this occasion the band started some 30 minutes late and played a full set, cunningly ensnaring those who thought themselves clever enough to rock up at the end.

When Mastodon finally emerged, the applause was polite rather than rapturous because half the room was asleep. Against a backdrop of swirling psychedelic light patterns that looked a lot like a screensaver option from Windows 7, the band opened with the slow-picked arpeggios of Oblivion, a track that plods along for almost six minutes through various changes without ever really breaking into a canter, before launching into Crack the Skye’s second track, Divinations, which brought a welcome change of pace. Disappointing was the early mix, especially given the long wait time in between bands, with the twin vocals of Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders blaring over the top at such a volume that all instrumentation seemed tame by comparison. Even then, it should be added that the vocal sounds were unusually clean, bereft of the harsh edges of the recordings. The overall impact was that the band sounded lighter and less heavy, which couldn’t possibly have been the intended effect.

Quintessence confirmed that the group was indeed going to play Crack the Skye in its entirety, though again it did little to energise the room despite Sanders’ frantic chorus bellows. In fact, it wasn’t until the epic, Rush-like, 1970s moog intro on The Czar that the audience began to open up. At last, here was a song that truly represented the journey-like soundtrack vibe that underpins Crack the Skye and it was now, listening to it live, that I realised how important it (and later album closer The Last Baron) had been to the overall success of that album, which could never have received the same critical plaudits on the strength of its first three tracks alone. Amazingly, it’s not until the chiselling palm mutes of The Czar: II. Escape that the band seems to have arrive, and its only from here that the room really swirls and pulses in a wave of group energy.

Unfortunately, the rigorous punching of the sky during this section unveiled a giant sack of armpits and the stench of body odour spread through the room like some heinous and deadly gas cloud. Seasoned death metal campaigners will generally tell you that gigs smell more of hair conditioner than body expulsion, and that the only time things get rancid is if one finds himself caught in the centre of the pit, subjected to a mass of sweaty teenage bodies.

Well, at Mastodon there was no pit, and this wasn’t ordinary BO. This was the type of bacterial expression that one expects of common homeless vagrants; the type that causes people to switch carriages on trains, all the while clutching handkerchiefs tightly to their nose and mouth to avoid certain death. So offensive was this eau de stink that a compatriot of mine described it as akin to “running a marathon in a spacesuit full of vomit!”

Despite its repugnant overtones, the pungency served as an overwhelming reminder of how Mastodon’s primary audience differs from the regular gang of metalheads. This was a far more alternative crowd, marked by dreadlocks, American marine tattoos and unwashed flesh. I imagined them loitering in any of a thousand campgrounds between Melbourne and Broome, bonded as much by their shared fear of showering as their love of Mastodon’s instrumental decadence. They were the band’s own road warriors, blasting Mastodon’s message from their Wicked campers while matching each musical moment with unique expressions of “modern dance”.

By the time The Czar began wrapping up, some 10 minutes after it began, the gig had taken the appearance of some kind of giant love-in. Everywhere, members of the dreadlocked army were hugging each other in wild elation at the emergence of the final chorus, and I wondered how they behaved when they got together to sink slabs, fire-twirl naked and play the album under the moonlight of another lost highway. Thankfully, the sweet smell of Mary Jane was starting to fill the air, smothering all other pernicious odours in a canopy of friendship and goodness.

Faultless performances of Ghost of Karelia and title track Crack the Skye helped the band sustain momentum, yet they were most remarkable for the standout performance of Brent Hinds, the lead guitarist who has assumed far more vocal duties on this album than on previous Mastodon works. Hinds is a standout as the soul of the band, his penchant for progressive, psychedelic rock stamped so indelibly upon the band’s latest material that it gives the best indication of where Mastodon will go next – 20-minute jam-outs flooded with vintage soundscapes and intermittently sprinkled with anthemic vocal melodies.

Highlight of the night is the 13-minute album closer The Last Baron, partly because the mix has finally improved and party because the performances are rock solid, but mostly because the song itself is a staggering masterpiece of layered guitar arrangements that bucks and twists more times than any of the mythical beasts employed in the band’s artwork. Not even the unruly presence of a feral hippie, inexplicably permitted to “dance” around the band for many minutes before rudely overstaying her welcome and being told by Sanders to “get the fuck off the stage”, could dampen the gloriousness of a moment so magical that it opened a gateway through which each member of the thousand-strong crowd could establish their own unique and deeply personal connection with the band. Gone was the audience, and even the venue. In their presentation of an album based upon the concept of an outer-body experience, it really did seem at times like Mastodon was playing for me alone!

Both The Last Baron and The Czar were worth the ticket price alone and stood out long after the gig’s final chords had reverberated onto the open street as not only the two songs of the night, but also the source Mastodon’s greatest strength.

Fittingly, the band left the stage briefly while touring keyboardist Rich Morris worked up some ambiance. Given the enormous role Morris played in bringing the keyboard-laden Crack the Skye to life, it was a little disappointing that he wasn’t introduced. He therefore remained relatively unknown and was forgotten once more as soon the band returned to play Circle Cysquatch from Blood Mountain, a track more immediately aggressive than anything in the previous set. Cranking up the intensity, speed and volume, Brent Hinds segued seamlessly from a giant, screaming wall of wah into the frenetic banjo-picking of Aqua Dementia with the band in hot pursuit, before breathlessly hitting top speed with Where Strides The Behemoth, Bladecatcher and Mother Puncher.

From there, Leviathan’s iconic Iron Tusk just about brought the house down before the band closed with another Remission track, March of the Fire Ants. While the first set had purpose and vision, the second felt fractured and confused, lacking clear direction and drawing too heavily from the band’s least-popular album Remission. The group also fell short of the promotional claim that it would play a “two-hour set list”, wrapping up in just under 80 minutes, and it’s a safe bet there was much disappointment at the omission of many of the big songs from Blood Mountain and Leviathan, specifically The Wolf is Loose, Crystal Skull, and Blood and Thunder, as well as countless others. As the set list is always a point of controversy when bands have a deep and successful catalogue of material from which to draw, it’s ultimately a point best left to drunken bar debates.

Of the songs that were played, Mastodon’s performance was a delight and few would’ve left unhappy. The bands failure to deliver on specific promo claims employed to maximise attendances may seem trite but it can’t go unmentioned. Hopefully, it’s not the beginning of a disturbingly dishonest trend.

Setlist

First set
Oblivion
Divinations
Quintessence
The Czar
Ghost of Karelia
Crack the Skye
The Last Baron

Second set
Circle Cysquatch
Aqua Dementia
Where Strides the Behemoth
Bladecatcher
Mother Puncher
March of the Fire Ants

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE SHOW