photo taken from Brooklyn Vegan
Cargo is a funny one for gigs, it's a beautiful bar under a tunnel so a bit of an acoustics nightmare but at the same time really intimate- you can basically stroke the band while they play if you want.
Luckily I positioned myself right in front of the smoke machine which The Besnard's are not shy of using... A sense of dread crept over me with every atmospheric build up, shortly followed by a gobful of carbon dioxide. Nice. The overall effect was great though, dream-like vocals with grungey bass and fuzzy guitars enveloped in smoke is a winning combo. The set was pretty trippy and very distortiony, the lead singer has an alter boys range, hitting notes I didn't think were even possible. They totally rocked out at the end, with Hendrix-inspired guitar solos. There was also an awesome song which belonged on a Tarantino soundtrack, I can't remember the song names hot dang but both albums are up on Spotify.
The crowd was packed tight with hardcore TBL fans, I've never seen a more devoted following... hanging on every note and baying for more. It was kind of fitting that the lead singer looked like a demented Jesus- he had long flowing golden hair, Brian Jonestown Massacre sunglasses, a cowboy shirt, regulation black M&S worker style trousers and sensible black shoes. The trousers were the most unsettling... His wife, who sings and plays guitar, looked like Alanis Morrissette/Mary (mother of God) with long black hair to her navel and a wrappy dress thing and the drummer had this immense beard (it was very impressive, definitely in the top 3 beards I've ever seen).
As it was the last date of the tour, they had a pretty odd picture moment where they brought the support band up (Wolf People- don't look them up they're not great...) and got the audience to take pictures and then gave their email address to send them to. Then the singer referred to himself as a child molester. Very odd.
All in all a great gig though. Go check them out if you get a chance.
