Soriah - Star Theater - September 29, 2016

[Portland, OR] Less band, more performance art. One older man and a younger guy DJing. The young guy was black t-shirted and definitely the backup. The older man was the centerpiece in a brown cloak and an elaborate be-feathered headdress – maybe black contacts. He roared and wailed to a backup of basic industrial noise in some sort of ceremony of satan. It was ominous, a psychic healing, Twin Peaks, Pink Floyd, Yeah Yeah Yeah. Drone and die. The one-song 40-minute-plus set ended with ten minutes of chanting “Who Am I Becoming” and then five minutes of danceable electronica. It was a regular nihilist party. The best was a hiking-looking guy who did gyrating yoga thorugh the whole set – I’d seen him doing warm-up stretches next to his hiking-looking girlfriend beforehand. I love when people exceed my weirdness expectations. I tolerated the tomfoolery because I believed this was Psychic TV or some part of a Psychic TV collective – but, ah, the venue failed to list or acknowledge a whole slew of openers. I actually kind of liked him and the catharsis he brought to the whole audience and as I google him, I think he might have been drawing from authentic indigenous music (a throat singer?). Plus he has a Joshua tree, my home plant, on his facebook page.