WHILE America was snoring Grant Lee Phillips was writing songs, and soon he began to stir up the dust which had gathered under a nation's belly. With their first album, Fuzzy, Grant Lee Buffalo wiped the sleep out of America's eyes, and the band became firm favourites of Michael Stipe, who no doubt related to their out of focus view of life.
With their third album, Copperopolis, Buffalo are still a tightly knit herd, a thundering three piece who remain clued in to each other's vibe, although it sometimes seems they're on a trail to nowhere.
At the Olympia last night, Grant Lee Buffalo played a rousing gig to an exuberant audience, eager to share the group's grandiose visions of dilapidation and dereliction. Wielding his acoustic guitar like a woodcutter's axe, Phillips leases out the nuances of country style strumming, then suddenly lets loose with a sustained burst of distorted riffing, and the effect is like being caught in the middle of a stampede. "Let's get it off our chest!" he cries before unleashing another bout of cathartic noise.
Paul Kimble is a tall, nimble figure on bass, and he strokes out the lines before suddenly jerking them into attention. Drummer Joey Peters keeps the disparate musical ideas from breaking loose and galloping in opposite directions into the horizon.
Phillips holds little back on the vocals, howling so clearly that the moon itself wakes up with a start. All this primal rage on the prairie balances nicely with the gentler, more evocative stuff which conjures up visions of ghost riders on their way to rendezvous with the spirit of punk past.
Mockingbirds, the key track off Mighty Joe Moon, triggers something below the surface, but you're not quite sure what it is. Jupiter And Teardrop has a similar effect, but this earlier song sounds a little road weary by now and has lost much of its lachrymose effect.
The call for an encore would send the toughest cowhands scurrying for the ditch, and Buffalo brought out two members of support band 16 Horsepower to help along on banjo and bass, but the audience enthusiasm remained undiluted. "I sure hope somebody's boot legging this!" says Phillips, clearly overcome by the reception. Don't send me a copy though Buffalo are better in the flesh.
