"String theory. You wouldn't understand."

The previous time I attended a Mastodon headlining show was in November 2008, when they played as a three-piece in the Tivoli in Utrecht. “Brother Bill”, guitarist Bill Kelliher, was hospitalized at the time. They did a surprisingly good job, taking into consideration how much their songs usually rely on the interaction between the two guitars.

This time around, the group was more than complete again, with the keyboardist who played on a couple of tracks on their latest studio effort also added to the live line-up. During the current tour, Mastodon performed said album, 2009’s Crack the Skye, in its entirety. Proggier than ever before, the band didn’t know how to isolate just a few chapters of the saga from the rest of the story and fit those into a regular set. Even though they had always managed to distill an interesting mix of old and new songs in the past, it made some sense to me to leave a concept album intact (but weren’t the previous three all concept albums?). Continue reading →