As Denison peels off some mind-bending slide guitar feedback, Yow strips off his T-shirt, revealing the lean muscles of a man who spends his working hours in a frenzied state of physical chaos, hurling himself across the stage and, just as often, off of it. If the crowd is the sixth man in basketball, then they become the fifth member of the band at a Jesus Lizard concert. It takes more than the precision pounding of his three mates to keep David Yow afloat.
In Seasick , he vacillates on his ability to swim; in this video, he proves again and again that he was a master of surfing the crowd, a microphone cable ensnaring his ankles and the undertow of the concrete floor threatening to drag him down. Yow didn t care what happened to his physical self, so long as he communicated the urgency of his band s music. He also didn t care about his audience s eardrums, at one point taunting the masses into tinnitus: Who else has earplugs in?
You, get them the fuck out of there. What the fuck s wrong with you? A barrage of mushy, colorful projectiles then rains upon the stage.
I wish I d had the good sense to wear earplugs when I saw The Jesus Lizard play. I also wish I d had the guts to stand in the first few rows. The band was still awesome from 50 feet away, but I missed some of the kinetic energy that those more intrepid Lizard fans must ve felt back in the 90s.
This DVD doesn t drip with sweat or exude the hormones of a throng held in thrall, but, even with just the two cameras used, the intimacy achieved is incredible. As a fan of every member of the band, each of whom is an accomplished musician, I would ve preferred a little more camera time on Denison, Sims, and McNeilly. But those three guys always knew who everyone was watching and never tried to grab the spotlight s attention.
Although you could hear and feel the tight cuts and jabs of the rest of the band, it was Yow you watched. A smart guy who liked to unwind by playing Scrabble on the tour bus, he bore the charisma of a lunatic, but he knew exactly what he was doing. Combined with the hypnotic and unrelenting grooves of his band mates, Yow and company made for a riveting live band, and this DVD captures the Jesus Lizard phenomenon quite well.
The five bonus cuts captured at CBGB in August 1992 is of bootleg quality only. The audio is quiet and distant and the video grainy. Still, it s amazing to see how tight and powerful the band was at this earlier stage.
And, hey, it s just bonus material. You were expecting masterful cinematography? Well, you won t find any of that artsy-fartsy stuff here.
This DVD is a no-frills affair. Then again, The Jesus Lizard was a no-frills band, so a lack of bells and whistles isn t an issue. As Denison peels off some mind-bending slide guitar feedback, Yow strips off his T-shirt, revealing the lean muscles of a man who spends his working hours in a frenzied state of physical chaos, hurling himself across the stage and, just as often, off of it.
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