Live Review: Vivid Sydney - Noise Night Aimee-Lee Curran

Vivid Sydney’s Noise Night, curated by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, delivered on its promise “to journey to the outer edges of music and beyond” with “some of the world’s most adventurous sonic explorers”. Writing about this event is difficult, and not simply because each band - a core group of seven - performed without introduction, but also because musicians from each cross-pollinated with one another throughout the evening, forming allegiances and appearing on stage in new incarnations of bands. Additionally, how do you describe four hours of sublime noise?

I was initially irritable to find a show at the Opera House running over half an hour late, but as soon as I walked into the theatre the reason behind the delay was strewn all over the stage: hundreds of leads, huge teetering amp stacks, three drum kits, tens of guitars, laptops, more effects pedals than you’d find in a guitar nerd’s wet dream, frantic roadies and a whole load of weird looking synthesisers.

So it was I embarked on a four hour extravaganza of complete insanity and sounds I didn’t even know existed; one of the most phenomenal outputs of creative force ever.

Should I start with Rice Corpse, who took innovation and lunacy to another level, playing with a sheet of amplified glass that fed into a bunch of pedals and was promptly mashed into the noise prophet Lucas Abela’s face, literally exploding into horrifying shards of sound, blood and glass?

No, let’s go from the beginning, with Zond, who avoided bloodshed and set the tone of the evening brilliantly with their thick shoegaze guitar drones and raging wah-pedal action, followed by the emergence of psycho Japanese noise punks, Melt-Banana. Guitarist Ichirou Agata appeared wearing a surgical mask on stage and as he stood quietly ruminating over his effects pedals I thought of that Simpsons episode when the Yakuza are fighting the Italian mafia outside the family home and Homer watches an unmoving Japanese mobster in anticipation, telling Marge he knows he’s about to do “something cool.” Well, unlike Homer I wasn’t dragged away from the spectacle, and got to witness Agata shredding his guitar, slamming all over the stage and breathing so heavily from the effort his mask wheezed in and out of his mouth with all the intensity of a serial killer from your worst nightmare. 

Agata reappeared later on in the night with Melt-Banana frontwoman Yasuko Onuki; both had miner’s torches strapped onto their foreheads as the stage lights disappeared and the audience was treated to an onslaught of f-cked up noise (there is no elegant way to put it) screaming out of a laptop while two lights bounced, spun and panicked all over the stage.

More challenging was Sydney born Sunn O))) collaborator Oren Ambarchi, who played at a desk covered in effects pedals (even more lay at his feet), strummed a couple of notes on his guitar and created a cacophony of blips, glitches, vibrations and whirring calls of brutality unlike anything I’ve ever heard. At some point during my amazement, a massive gong was dragged on stage and the presence of stoner rock heroes Boris, whose much-adored set travelled from the murmuring to the momentous, was felt by all.

Music aside, one of the most interesting things about this show was the enormous coordinated effort of the roadies who worked as one furious organism. Like determined soldier ants amid towers of equipment, they made the show what it was, for there would be no sound – let alone NOISE – without dedicated dudes untangling rivers of leads and figuring out which one connection has come loose amid some guitar hero’s smorgasbord of pedals.

After intermission we were introduced to Melbourne’s Night Terrors, featuring Miles Brown, a gargantuan of a man who should be knighted for his contribution to ridiculously amazing, face-melting theramin playing. Also moonlighting in the behemoth of volume that is Bardo Pond, Brown sliced the air around his theramin with such tenacity I felt my head would implode. My mind is still being blown 24 hours later. I salute you, Sir. 

The evening was capped off with a surprise set from Lou Reed, joined onstage by wife and co-curator Laurie Anderson, who had provided deranged violin songs throughout the evening. Albeit feeble in appearance, once seated in his revolving chair, guitar on lap, strange alien instruments and nine noise comrades (including electronic alchemist Sarth Calhoun and the incredible Marc Ribot on guitar) surrounding him, Reed conducted a one hour drone session of epic proportions.

When the chaos had subsided, house lights lit up, and those remaining in the theatre had halved their numbers, Reed suddenly looked up and said, “So, did you really like that? I can’t believe there are still people here.” For ten minutes we clapped and cheered until the man pulled his noise orchestra together again and droned on once more, to a mere 80 or so people who, at 12.30am, soaked up every last persistence of sound. Truly, truly special.