PEPPERMINT IGUANA: FREAKED OUT AND FUNKED UP: Acid Mothers Temple live in Cardiff

I must have been to a freakier gig than this, MUST have, but I cant for the life of me think when. Tonight’s gig with the Acid Mothers Temple really would take some beating on the freaked out steaks.

For the uninitiated, The Acid Mothers Temple are a wigged out Japanese experimental psychedelic jazz rock crew that take on a myriad of forms and… well, just read about them here.

I have loved the concept of the band for a long time now but have found their albums very difficult to get into. A friend of mine tried to explain it to me once, he said, “Their music is so difficult you have to try really hard to appreciate it, so hard it hurts, it takes a while but when it clicks it is like a revelation, like suddenly understanding differential calculus”. Personally I like my rock ‘n roll simple.

Undeterred by the difficult albums I went to see them a while ago and discovered that live they really are something else, one of the most amazing live bands I have ever seen. Not catching them again was never really an option.

Zipadee doodah

I suppose it should not have come as any surprise that tonight was to be something completely different from that first gig. COMPLETELY different. They were supposed to be playing as a three piece but the bass player was taken ill so they just carried on regardless as a two-piece.

Things were weird from the off. They started with playing the zips on their jackets. Yes, that’s right, zips. I have no idea what was going on, I assume some sort of pick up was attached to the zip, then put through a distortion pedal and the volume turned right up. Jaw dropping weirdness.

Scissors... the cutting edge of avant guard

Water music, Handel would have been proud

Then they got a bit more serious and started playing scissors, followed by empty bottles of water and then cameras. You had to be there to appreciate it.

When a third of your band is missing, what is the obvious thing to do? well in the case of the Acid Mothers, the guitarist goes outside for a smoke for 30 minutes while the drummer plays solo. Obvious really. It was not quite a drum solo, there was some sort of backing track thing going on which in my book spoilt it a bit, I think I would have preferred something more traditional. Traditional is not what you get at an Acid mothers gig though, so I suppose I have no right to complain. It did remind me of that famous Tony Wilson quote “Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.”

Jimmy Page has a lot to answer for.. but somehow i think this lot would have thought of violin bows without him

When the guitarist came back on stage the drummer buggered off for half an hour. Somewhere along the way I actually recognised one of the numbers, their ‘signature’ tune, ‘Pink Lady Lemonade’. The crowd were mesmerised and stood watching in awe all night long.