Ah, that well-worn gig device of playing an album from start to finish: not only can you then prepare yourself to jiggle along to all the highlights, but you also know when to take a well-timed toilet break (ie when the ill-conceived calypso section kicks into gear).
Except that with Mastodon’s epic Crack the Skye there’s little that doesn’t require yourself to be riveted in full view of the band, and instead of quaint jiggling you’re more likely to be stridently head-nodding, its vicious constancy only regulated by the myriad tempos employed with clinical efficiency by the masterful metallers. Oh, plus there's definitely no calypso.
The band have risen through the ranks of identikit grunting riff merchants, honing their sound until they reached a point with their most recent album when they found themselves almost without peer. They’re now able to flirt with prog-rock by virtue of having an overarching thematic concept for Crack the Skye involving astral travel, the theories of Stephen Hawking and the assassination of Rasputin. (Which explained the appearance of sinister bearded figures on the hypnotic huge video screen placed behind the band; at one point I fully expected Derren Brown to pop up and finally explain how he did that goddam lottery prediction.)
Oh, plus they have 11-minute tracks like album centrepiece The Czar, which has enough tonal shifts to put Bohemian Rhapsody to shame, indeed also featuring obtuse lyrical themes and a gloriously rollicking mid-section that sends the crowd's most-pit into fits of ecstacy. Unfortunately though there’s no camp theatrics or even eyeliner on display from the black-clad sloggers onstage, though to be fair delicately applied make-up would probably clash with some of the gnarly beards on display.
The idea of seeing Mastodon at the Barrowlands beforehand seemed too good to be true, and in some ways it is. There’s something workmanlike about the performance, a sense of the band going through the motions after a year of rigorous touring since Crack the Skye was released. Is it a mere coincidence that Comfortably Numb plays over the sound-system after the show ends? It doesn’t help that the sound is muddy, lacking the clarity necessary for someone of their confident complexity, though it does improve after an inauspicious start. In those regards the show compares unfavourably with their performance at Glasgow’s ABC last June, which also featured the same format of performing Crack the Skye from start to finish before delving (on that occasion more comprehensively) into their back catalogue.
Most of that seems like nit-picking though, as tonight’s show is still one of the best that those in attendance will be lucky enough to witness this year, and it’s a tragedy that deluded idiots still brand the band too heavy to make radio playlists and reach a far wider audience. (Though as I’d mainly just want to see what Terry Wogan makes of them, I think my desire is somewhat murky at best.)
The show properly kicks into gear when a massive roar goes up among the crowd before the blissfully sanguineous final couple of minutes of Quintessence, and doesn’t let up until the skyscraper-levelling closing riff of an absolutely colossal March of the Fire Ants, a song so monumental that every time I hear it I expect the floor to open up in front of me and the armies of hell to rise up into our mortal world. It's a suitable set-closer, the band seeming to have more fun as they cut loose and play some crushing tracks from previous albums, the crowd reaction suitably seismic. Tellingly Lucifer also shows up on the video screens, though he doesn’t put in a personal appearance, not even for all those flashing devil horns throughout the show. It’s a shame, as he missed one hell of a show.
