Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Pordenone / Il Deposito Giordani / Italy
Concert date: February 8, 2016
Attendance: 450
Ticket price: €25.00
The international instrumental trio The Aristocrats, made up of British guitar alien Guthrie Govan (Steven Wilson, ex-Asia, GPS), American bass oddball Bryan Beller (Dethklok, Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa) and German drumming megalomaniac Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson, Joe Satriani, The Mute Gods), stopped by Pordenone on their current ‘Tres Caballeros’ tour and delivered an unforgettable live experience for fans of top-tier technical chops and endless improvisational tomfoolery. The brilliant trio, who are touring their third studio effort, »Tres Caballeros« (2015), are something special with their jaw-dropping instrumental and songwriting skills, even for the usually pretty demanding prog-rock gourmands and assorted music nerds. Part of what has surely helped The Aristocrats become so popular with fans of progressive rock, prog metal and jazz rock fusion is that they blend their music with a razor-sharp sense of humor, a perfect mix of English satirical quips and American slapstick, so there’s never a shortage of laughs at their shows.
In the style of their great idol Frank Zappa, Messrs. Govan, Beller and Minnemann love to talk at length between songs, firing off witty anecdotes, mostly from their everyday lives and often with a few social-critique barbs thrown in, that set off waves of laughter in the crowd like it’s nothing. Minnemann also delighted the Italians by showing off a few Italian words he’d picked up from his ex-girlfriend. The Aristocrats opened the show with a direct fusion ‘shot between the eyes’ called »Stupid 7«, and it was a real pleasure to watch their virtuoso skills from start to finish. Guthrie, wrapping his thin fingers around the guitar neck like some long-legged spider, was the first to get the laughs going that night. In his distinctive ‘cockney’ accent, he introduced the song »Jack’s Back«, in which the mysterious Jack makes another appearance, after being introduced earlier in the composition »Furtive Jack«. The Aristocrats steamrolled everything in their path when it came to complex rhythmic patterns and crazy guitar variations, mostly sticking faithfully to the studio versions while throwing in some completely spontaneous improvisation here and there.
Next came Bryan’s entertaining anecdote about the backstory of »Texas Crazypants«, in which he told the crowd about a bad but interesting experience he had during a stop at a roadside rest area in Texas. There, a crazy, scheming waitress who was determined to get her hands on his money thoroughly swindled him over some made-up damage to her vehicle. »Culture Clash« was introduced as a song symbolizing the feelings that overcome the members of The Aristocrats whenever they find themselves in an unfamiliar, exotic environment and struggle to get used to local customs. During »Pig’s Day Off«, the rubber pig lovers got their first treat of the night, as all three musicians competed to see who could coax more squealing and squeaking sounds out of the various toys, and keeping a straight face was of course tough. This kind of thing has long since become part of The Aristocrats’ regular concert ‘folklore’. The stunningly dynamic »Desert Tornado«, which Marco introduced with his dramatic story of fleeing an approaching tornado, came with a killer drum solo that left plenty of people in the room breathless. Anyone who had been wondering until then why Marco is currently the busiest and most active drummer in the world got their answer in an instant.
The Aristocrats are well aware that over 90% of their audience is made up of musicians and music nerds of the male persuasion, while the women who turn up at their gigs are few and far between, and even those are usually already taken and come to see the three unusual ‘aristocrats’ because of their other halves. After Bryan explained how, while writing »Smuggler’s Corridor«, he heard a vocal melody in his head for the first time in The Aristocrats’ history, he invited the audience to help sing this rare vocal moment in the band’s catalog. Suddenly he came up with the rather bizarre idea of having only the women in the audience sing the vocal melody at the agreed moments. The results were of course dismal, with only a kind of muffled ‘meowing’ coming from roughly six female throats, and on the first attempt a male intruder snuck in, whom Beller spotted on the spot and scolded in his own special way.
Guthrie’s closing anecdote, about »The Kentucky Meat Shower«, was also the most interesting, as it was tied to a pretty bizarre historical event, still unexplained to this day, that happened near Kentucky in 1876 when chunks of raw meat rained from the sky over the town of Rankin. Guthrie of course quickly offered his own rational explanation – a flock of vultures, collectively mimicking the behavior of one bird that suddenly felt sick, threw up chunks of meat on the unsuspecting townsfolk below. The Aristocrats wouldn’t be The Aristocrats if they hadn’t played »Get It Like That« as an encore, with rubber animals (two piglets, a plucked chicken and a goose) in the starring roles. Marco neatly piled the little animal family on his cymbals at the start of the song, but some of them quickly tumbled off the drum kit as he pounded away. Bryan got so caught up in his dialogue with the crowd that, as he burst out laughing, he stepped on the poor plucked chicken lying on the floor. At the end, Marco confidently claimed the grand prize for best rubber-animal improviser, even getting tangled up in a brief duel with Guthrie’s guitar that ended in a draw. Sadly, that was the last act of the night. Lubricated with some of the craziest virtuoso jabs, and boasting really top-quality sound too, the trio bid farewell to a delighted crowd amid thunderous ovations.
In a downright virtuoso orgy of a show in Pordenone, The Aristocrats proved they’re the kind of outstanding concert entertainers that, sadly, are getting harder and harder to find these days. The trio share an incredible spontaneity, which unites them both in showing off individual feats of virtuosity and in cooking up wildly contagious humor. Had the legendary Frank Zappa, from whom The Aristocrats learned a great deal with their burlesque mix of prog rock, jazz rock fusion and prog metal, plus joking anecdotes in between, still been alive, all three would surely have formed the core of his backing band. It’s not hard to imagine the results of such a collaboration would have been downright magnificent. Then again, working with cult names like Steven Wilson, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai has had a beneficial effect on the trio’s musical development too, as they quickly grew from outstanding instrumentalists into excellent songwriters, ones you simply can’t praise enough.
Setlist
1. Stupid 7
2. Jack’s Back
3. Texas Crazypants
4. Pressure Relief
5. Culture Clash
6. Louisville Stomp
7. Pig’s Day Off
8. Desert Tornado (drum solo)
9. Smuggler’s Corridor
10. The Kentucky Meat Shower
—encore—
11. Get It Like That
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