Nov 28

Nov 28 Concert review: Ty Segall at The Grey Eagle

“What did I just see?” — That is a workable summary of my thoughts upon leaving The Grey Eagle following Ty Segall’s acoustic performance on Nov. 18. In fact, the show by the California-based musician — known more for his electric, eclectic, pseudo-psychedelic hard rock than folksy coffee-house strumming — left me with a lot of big questions: Were these songs meant for the stripped down solo acoustic treatment? Was Segall experimenting on us? Was he heckling the fan who was singing along at one point, or was he genuinely appreciating him? Was the whole thing a put-on? Was it performance art?

Twelve hours later, I still didn’t have the answers. “Do you think he was messed up?” someone asked me, and I could only reply, “I honestly don’t know.” (For the record, I am not suggesting that Segall was on drugs, and all evidence from his interviews and profiles suggests his state of mind is more typically “stoked” than stoned. However, the one guy in the crowd who twice yelled out “I’m on drugs!” was very possibly on drugs.)

What I can say is that Segall’s 70-minute, sometimes captivating, sometimes abrasive performance held my interest throughout, and that’s worth something. That I haven’t stopped thinking about it since says something as well. Among the rest of those packing the venue, many of whom were clearly Segall die-hards, there seemed to be plenty who were getting to hear their favorite cuts in an up-close — or perhaps, in-your-face — way they had not before.

The asymmetry of Segall’s performance was less prevalent in the opening set by Charles Moothart, though the Segall collaborator and bandmate did deliver plenty of unexpected twists and turns. Also wielding an acoustic guitar, the sometimes heavy metal lead-guitarist showed his stripes, throwing in solo flourishes and using the entire guitar neck in angular chord progressions that suggested he was taking us on some kind of epic vision quest. Moothart worked in lyrics of dreamy imagery, juxtaposing ideas of beauty and death that would be at home next to words inked by both Lord Byron and Syd Barrett. At the conclusion of his first pair of songs, he clarified that the sonic diptych was “...about an interdimensional being looking at mankind from the outside and shit.”

The crowd, many of whom were likely familiar with Moothart’s guitar work alongside Segall in the band Fuzz and as the drummer in The Freedom Band, pressed forward during his set as the Grey Eagle continued to fill, hugging the stage as close as I’ve seen for any opening act there, and then held their places up front during the set break.

When Segall took the stage, he addressed the room with a simple and boyish, “Hello. How are you?” and then set into show opener “Queen Lullabye,” a droning, kaleidoscopic tune, dripping with Revolver-era Beatles or (very) early Pink Floyd.

His trip through 20 or so stripped-down songs from his extensive catalog rolled and/or careened from number to number without much in the way of introductions or post-scripts. Songs, like “Alta” and “Over” melded well into acoustic performances, while others, like “Warm Hands (Freedom Returned)” felt gangly and jolting, more like a metalhead friend in your living room messing around on the acoustic.

Throughout the performance, though, Segall’s puckish grin and the glimmer in his eyes seemed to broadcast that he knew just what he was doing. Sometimes keening, sometimes screaming, he fed the audience the angst and glam that courses through his records, keeping the rock vocal “Ah-ah-ahs” and the rapid, heavy guitar parts right where they belonged.

If there’s a show that separates the newbies from the true fans, this one may have been it. Throughout the room, people were bobbing to familiar tunes while in the back, those of us not as well versed still got a mesmerizing experience. The entire venue seemed to buzz along with the same unpredictability as Segall’s set in a way that made my notes obsolete as soon as I wrote them.

Just as I jotted down that the crowd was blessedly quiet during the show’s first songs, the seams began to unravel. And by the time Segall was tearing through “I Bought My Eyes,” the room was full of chatter again. Someone in the middle of the mob tried repeatedly and fruitlessly to get the singer’s attention. Elsewhere in the throng, an extraordinarily tall man swayed on the verge of toppling over. Like Segall, the whole place was sometimes in a groove and other times felt on the edge of coming apart, and it was impossible to look away.

Segall is rightly known as a visionary, and his impressive library of work shows that he’s not fit to be constrained to an expected sound. Still, even he suggested that the evening’s presentation was something new and perhaps unknown. “I like playing these songs for you,” he said. “Especially this way. Do the songs work, or do they not work, you know?”

With the crowd basking in agreement or bewilderment, he set into fan favorite “My Lady’s on Fire,” and those in the know joined in to sing along. It was a sweet and satisfying glow of an ending, made perhaps even better by the exposed rawness we had just gone through. The firmest law of entropy is that the universe tends toward disorder. As the singing from the audience rose up, and Segall made room for their voices, I clicked my pen, and wrote that this show had done something strangely opposite: taken a chaotic and dangerous performance and brought it to a place of unison. And I felt like maybe I had a handle on this Ty Segall guy.

Then, only moments after I wrote those words, Segall returned for an encore, turned on the warped buzz of a synthesizer, and began screaming into the mic, slashing through “Oh Mary,” and pausing to interlace the song with the “Chi-chi-chi-chi — Ah-ah-ah-ah” theme from the Friday the 13th movies. Finally, I put my notebook in my pocket and resigned myself to accept that something had happened at The Grey Eagle that night — I’m just not sure what.

And I think Segall would be just fine with that.

(Photos by Justin Bowman)