Live music review: Meatbodies at Antone’s with The Well and Spoon Benders for LEVITATION
Saturday evening’s LEVITATION late night show at Antone’s presented by The Cosmic Clash featured Meatbodies, Austin’s The Well and Portland act, Spoon Benders. A packed club witnessed impactful garage rock, psych and heavy guitar rock from a trio of talented bands. It was the kind of bill that could have stood on its own and drawn a similar crowd. Suppose one could say that about most of the lineups at this year’s edition of LEVITATION Festival which is reflection of the quality of acts on the four-day festival bill.
Portland’s Spoon Benders took the stage first as fest-goers trickled into the club from earlier shows that evening. Outside the club, adjacent Sixth Street and Halloween weekend collided into a mess of people descending into downtown at the same time. A parade of costumed party people went by the club in matter of minutes while inside, Spoon Benders were making fans wonder if the real headliner was the opening act.
Replete in costumes and makeup, the PDX band romped through a wildly entertaining performance that kept our official photographer there through the end of the set despite plans to run over to Red River Street to shoot other subjects at Empire. LEVITATION is like that… so much good music coming from each venue, fans can’t lose. And neither, apparently media workers.
Proving that theory out, Spoon Benders eventually gave way to Austin-based doom metal / psych rock group, The Well who ran deep (sorry not sorry) on musical chops and songwriting. This band has only gotten better as the years have passed, appearing at the last two LEVITATION fests among other impressive dates. The band goes on a U.S Fall tour next month before joining 1000Mods on European tour later this year and next.
By the time meatbodies hit the stage at 1 a.m. fans had come from King Gizzard at Stubb’s and other nearby shows to see the group. The band is led by Chad Ubovich (Fuzz) who plays guitar and sings lead vocals in the four-piece garage / psych rock outfit. Loyal followers pushed to the front of the club and pressed against the barricade that kept them from smashing into and over the monitor speakers on the floor of the stage underneath their heads. Thrashing would be an appropriate word.
Far Out Lounge talent buyer Lawrence Boone called the performance his, “Favorite set of the weekend” on Twitter.
We couldn’t agree more. After finally seeing the meatbodies live after hearing about the project by Ubovich (who plays bass in Ty Segal project Fuzz) we realized the live performance vastly exceeded our hopes. These guys know how to rock your socks off.
The underpinnings of gritty Blues rock underneath a heavy coating of garage punk arrangements that got fans bouncing was apparent in Ubovich’s shredding solos. Apparently Boone already knew this as the taste-making talent buyer had booked the group in 2017 for SXSW.
All photos by Alexis Ramirez
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