A Place To Bury Strangers at the Yost Theatre

It is hard to believe that it has been almost five plus years since I first caught A Place To Bury Strangers at the Viper Room along with traveling to Texas to see them open for Nine Inch Nails. They tour tirelessly and consistently produce albums that will blow your mind as well as your eardrums. It was Cinco De Mayo and the Yost Theatre had a huge line up of psychedelic bands dubbing the day Psycho De Mayo which had A Place To Bury Strangers hitting the stage a little after 10:15.

Unfortunately, I was really sick at the beginning of the day and was questioning my ability to go to even attend the show but rallied after a few doses of medication and lots of fluids. A Place To Bury Strangers recently released an album of Dead Moon covers for record store day release entitled Strange Moon. I made it to the Yost Theatre maybe ten minutes before they were scheduled to play and got a spot in front of fuzz and feedback specialist Oliver Ackermann.

Under a cloak of darkness and a shroud of noise, A Place To Bury Strangers proceeded to destroy Santa Ana. Ackermann was pulverizing his white battered Fender Jaguar while Dion Lunadon's Fender bass was missing a chunk from the headstock probably due to the abuse these instruments receive every night. "Deadbeat" simply shredded with its fantastic sheets of white noise and feedback. Lunadon took over the vocal duties for "Drill It Up" as Robi Gonzalez tirelessly slammed at his drum kit while sporting a fashionable METZ t-shirt. "Mind Control" was another face melting proposition as I heard a few audience members asking for the volume to be turned up.

The climax of the show occurred at the end for "I've Lived My Life To Stand In The Shadow Of Your Heart". It was a ferocious moment as Ackermann ripped the strings off his guitar and wildly swung it around producing a hurricane of noise and feedback. Your senses were also assaulted by the unrelenting strobe light that would illuminate the band members for a fraction of a second as it seemed to be coordinated with the torrential amount of unleashed noise. It turns out that A Place To Bury Strangers show was the exact medication I needed and a full dose of fuzz and feedback does wonders for the soul.