Photos: Black Moth Super Rainbow @ The Firebird | 05.13.13
Philadelphia’s experimental-folk-pop-electronica gods known as Black Moth Super Rainbow survived a van break-in to perform at The Firebird in St. Louis on May 15th, 2013 with Oscillator Bug and Hood Internet.
The Show
The day of the show, my social media networks were abuzz with requests from my friends at The Firebird for an Akai MPC 500 and one of two vocoder units. Overnight, Black Moth Super Rainbow’s van had been broken into and while no one spoke of what all was taken, it was very obvious that two very essential pieces of equipment needed immediate replacing. Thankfully, an MPC 500 and vocoder were acquired, though through my inquiry the story wasn’t exactly clear.
But the show did happen, that’s probably the most important part. After the changeover from Hood Internet’s stage setup and the lights dimmed, Black Moth Super Rainbow took the stage to the cheers of the very full Firebird. The group opened with “Hairspray Heart” from Cobra Juicy, with the music video playing on the screen behind the drummer. It’s an accessible song with a great guitar riff, as well as some choice lyrics, and not at all a bad way to absorb everyone’s attention.
Unsurprisingly, the night’s set pulled greatly from 2012’s Cobra Juicy. There were some older songs performed, but with all the variables of the evening it was hard to pick them out in an exact fashion. So much of what makes Black Moth Super Rainbow what it is comes from the production and the mood that it creates. Hearing “Sun Lips” without that dusty 4-track vibe and instead through the Firebird’s digital Midas mixer is slightly disorientating, robbing some songs of their identity. Tobacco’s vocoder for the evening, probably not the idea unit, sounded slightly off and at one point he commented that it sounded like shit. Considering the circumstances, it was forgivable.
The Shoot
From a photographer’s viewpoint it was a tough shoot. The darkness on stage made it difficult to even get the sort of capture that you could save by converting to black & white. Ryan Graveface and Pony Diver were basically impossible to get. Tobacco and The Seven Fields of Aphelion in keyboard land were easier, but only because of the light coming off of Tobacco’s laptop and Aphelion being partially illuminated by the video projector. Even then, I was shooting at 2500 ISO with shutter speeds sometimes as slow as 1/10, just trying to get something.
I feel bad for the teenagers that left not even 15 minutes after doors because their friend was tripping balls rather hardcore on something. Dudes missed a good time.
See the full set of photos from Black Moth Super Rainbow at The Firebird here.