Review: Man Forever

Sort of exactly matching my mood, Man Forever was or were pretty good yesterday at West Germany. I didn't know much about Man Forever before except that it's the "solo project" of John Colpitts aka. Kid Millions, when he's not busy playing with Oneida. But since I have a deep affection for all things Oneida related, just because they're an incredible band (read our review from them playing last year's Puschen Fest here), I had high hopes in this being good.

It took a while until anything eventually happened and West Germany was actually full enough. Before the concert there were some visuals and videos shown and the show itself was also introduced by a video of a music/dance performance piece by Man Forever.

A part of the concept of Man Forever playing live is that he invites local musicians to join him on stage for the evening. So besides himself on the snare drum he gathered around two more drummers on the exact same snare drum, a bassist and guitarist and a key/organ player.
The show started with two drummers playing a constant drum roll that lasted throughout the whole set. By and by, more of the other instruments and the third drummer joined in and everything formed a single pulsating drone. There was no melody, no recognizable structure and no real "beat" in the literal sense. It was more a repetitive and ruminant wall of feedbacks and hum, accompanied by the uninterrupted and constant drumming of three people on the same snare drum. It somehow had a very relaxing quality to me and I wish I had been able to sit down while watching. I have no real idea how long the show lasted, I'd guess something about 30 minutes and it ended with a relieving final stroke on the drums.

My 'Oneida plus related things' affection has once again been confirmed, this was a pretty intense and worthwhile experience.