Before Tuesday night’s Meltybrains gig, I don’t think I was fully prepared for the panorama of sensations that lay before me. The Abbey’s walls reverberated with a range of sounds as the band were joined by this summer’s most prismatic visual artist, Algorithm, in a one-off Dublin Fringe Festival performance.
Meltybrains challenge all of your preconceived notions of what a gig can be. Their show was a true affirmation of their psychedelic powers: the carnal wailing of each musician was entrancing, and their futuristic percussion and bass created a kaleidoscope of sound. Was this a retro-rave on Mars? Sitting in the audience was akin to standing in front of a door to another dimension.
The show opened with a sheer silver curtain obstructing the stage, behind which the silhouette of a violinist was visible. He pulled his bow, and the violin heaved over eerie mountains and empty valleys. It gathered gently, until all-so suddenly, it scattered. Five white figures appeared in the shape of an “M” and their shadows rose in rhythm with the hum of the song. All the while a deity hovers above. The white faceless mask is watching.
Perhaps it was because I ran in late to the darkened reception, where, in a room of strangers, some were in paint-splattered white masks. Or maybe it was because later that same mask was projected onto the stage of the red theatre and took on the changing face of a doll-like child. But before I left that night, my body was heavy in my seat, and my mind was taken by a narcotic experience to a place untouched by time, the smell of incense and smog weighing heavily in my mouth.
I only really remember in snapshots the broken sequence of events that took place. At one point, the music stopped and there was a pause for an unexplained award. A man and a woman in formal wear emerged satirically from the sides to present flowers to the band members amid a flurry of hugging and kissing. A man hammered the floor, repeatedly, and I wasn’t sure why. A pineapple found its way onto the stage, and then subsequently off. The theatre cut to light as someone rose to speak a chant I can scarcely remember. I only remember rising to join in. I said it and repeated it until it was dark again. I think I heard the flow of water. I think I heard the national anthem.
All these mere punctures to the winding trance of the music as the rippling colours of the stage warped a new reality. The orchestrated frenzy of flailing melodies while a single, distinct voice reached a pinnacle of dancing hysteria. Describing it later to a friend she said it sounded like a dream. It was a dream. Some fragment of lost memory, maybe. That ethereal neon blue bathing the players in the bowl of the stage. An imprint upon my eyes and a ramming against my ears.
