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Live review: STS9
On record, STS9 can be pretty snoozy and obvious. On the California jam band’s latest album, the 15-track ‘Peaceblaster,’ they manage to find 15 different ways of evoking your disinterest in their funky jungle-trance-house-metal amalgam.
Live, STS9 is plenty obvious, too. Barely a second goes by that they don’t push one of your pleasure buttons with great fanfare. And their vapid melodies — essentially, a series of major-key vamps that aren’t developed, but, rather, invoked, massaged and discarded — grow thin over the course of a seven-minute song and downright grating over the course of a 45-minute set.
But, live, one thing STS9 sure aren’t is snoozy. Taking the stage at 7:16 pm amidst a heavy downpour, they quickly banished the rain and the soggy vibes that came with it, seemingly through sheer force of will. Their music wasn’t surprising, but it was amped up to a higher level of energy than they achieve in the studio, which riled the crowd up. (‘Ohmigod, I love this song,’ one liquid-dancing girl said. ‘It makes me feel so sexy!’)
The crowd threw that energy — and a lot of glowsticks — back at the stage, which seemed to rev the band up even more. At around the half hour mark, STS9 dug into a house-music-inspired track that was as electrifying as this band’s synthesis of rock and rave ever gets. The fans — wet, cold and crowded together — danced themselves into a frenzy, doing the muddy grass beneath them no favors at all.
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Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: ACL 2009: Saturday, ACL Festival 2009
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By Michael from Austin
October 7, 2009 5:12 PM | Link to this
STS9 was downright sick. The ACL set was better than the aftershow set the night before at Stubb’s, even though it was half the length. I really loved the slow and nasty version of EHM. I spoke with a number of people who were seeing the tribe for the first time and they were all blown away, just like I was when I first saw them at ACL in 2007.