Andrew Spencer Goldman of Washington D.C.'s Fulton Lights told us about his Boredoms experience...
Andrew Spencer Goldman: The best gig I have ever seen, hands down and without any reservations whatsoever, was the Boredoms performance of 77 BOADRUM in Brooklyn, NY on 7/7/07 at 7:07 p.m. My only hesitation is calling it a “gig,” which feels completely off. It was perplexing, mind-blowing, godhead-touching, and fucking enormously loud, unlike anything I have ever experienced before or since. I feel immense gratitude for having been there for it.
There are videos online of it and a DVD of the performance released by Thrill Jockey, but I don’t think these can possibly come close to conveying the sheer magnitude of what this was like. The short description provided by Boredoms leader Yamantaka Eye at the time was deceptively simple and only hinted at what was to come: “The 77 drum group is one giant instrument, one living creature. The 77 boa-drum will coil like a snake and transform to become a giant dragon!” What this translated to in practice was 77 drummers (including some non-drummers like David Grubbs and Alan Licht who traded in their guitars for the day to be part of this) gathering on a gorgeously sunny evening in a park in DUMBO by the water, arranged in a gigantic spiral configuration, all being “conducted” by the Boredoms in the center with Eye wielding what looked like a giant trident and banging it against a wall of amplified guitar necks, all unifying to pierce the veil of existence. I remember standing just next to Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale as he absolutely pummeled the living shit out of his kit, and feeling like my mind was being cracked open by the sum total of what was happening.
Now, was Eye wearing a wizard hat? In my memory, he was wearing a wizard hat, but I may have added that in. In any case, that was the vibe: less performance, more ancient ritual. 77 minutes of pure ecstatic noise. In another time something or someone would have been sacrificed to conjure a deity.
Was it… a drum circle? Did I get my world altered by a drum circle? Cognitive dissonance!
Fulton Lights's album Best World is out November 6.
Photo by Peter Duvall
