Boris live at Desertfest 2023

Boris performed at this year's Desertfest, a multi-venue festival in London dedicated to stoner and sludge metal. Being one of the bigger bands at the festival, I saw them at the largest participating venue, The Roundhouse. On this tour, Wata took guitars, Takeshi took bass and guitars, while Atsuo took vocals only. Muchio also performed, acting as the tour drummer. This was an interesting concert, in several different ways. The tour setlist was made up, almost exclusively, of songs from 2021 album No and their most recent release Heavy Rocks (2022). Both are albums that I had only heard once, which led to me entering the concert without knowing what really to expect sonically, other than the fact that it would be loud (and loud it was!). Boris have something very peculiar about them: they are able to create so much noise, distortion and drone that somehow give an almost cathartic experience in this dense sonic landscape. When I first heard (not) Last Song on the album I never thought it could become one of these moments. It started the same way as the studio, with a few piano notes that make the song feel out of place. The live version, however, was extended from 6 minutes to 9 minutes, with Atsuo singing passionately, at times abandoning the mic to sing a cappella. The song went on to develop and turn into one of the most cathartic moment of the whole concert. What stole the show, though, was Atsuo's theatrics. Without these, the show could have ended up being just average, a band who might sound good but aren't the most memorable. His performance really elevated it, whether that was through crawling onto the barrier and falling into the hands of the public, or through the stage being enshrouded in smoke so that he could re-emerge, and take the stage once again.

However, this quickly led into my slight issue with the concert, as sometimes the smoke became too much. One instance was the appearance of belly dancer Holly Amber onstage during Nosferatou, which was an interesting move, and certainly one I wasn't expecting in the slightest. To be thrown off-guard in the middle of a concert provokes a sudden interest even when already enjoying it, and how I wish I could have absorbed it more, but the sudden blasts of smoke would completely conceal both Holly Amber and Atsuo. This wasn't as much of a problem for Atsuo, but for Holly Amber it didn't work so well; she needed more attention put on her, to truly see how a combination of bellydancing and stoner metal might work. Fear not though, after the inconvenience of not fully witnessing the surprise, the band came back harder than ever. From here one song would carry onto the next and all, until they reached the closer (not) Last Song, which really blew me away. All-in-all, despite its short 70 minute length being matched with a band that love long songs, the still proved itself to be good. Their main pull was the overall atmosphere they created, punctuated by overwhelming moments of noise, which was occasionally thrown off by periods of silence. If this is what Boris sound like with albums that I didn't particularly enjoy, then I would really love to experience the mammoths of Feedbacker and Flood in concert form.