Explosions in the Sky - Astoria

Explosions on the stage tonight as the American rockers caused one of their amps to overheat and were forced to leave the stage as smoke poured out.Luckily they had a spare and were able to complete the last song with a re-energised crowd buoyed by the sight of such rock and roll excess.Explosions play an instrumental psychedelic rock which whirls and swirls around your head and has at moments beauty and brutality. From the first song the three pronged guitar front were cartwheeling their arms and creating a real spectacle. As we moved into the front of the crowd though, there was a little less to see since there was a fair amount of crouching and altering of effects pedals being done. The sound was good though - something that can't always be said of the Astoria, and while I think the Explosions probably need a small amount of mind altering substances to be completely satisfying the gig was a success and led on to talk of Spiritualized and prog rock we have loved.