Oct192009
Karmakanic @ Orion Studios
Filed under Music by Kim at 9:37 pm on Oct 19 2009
Went to Orion Studios in Baltimore for the first time last week. It seemed like every time I wanted to go there and support the prog scene, there was something in my way. But finally the stars aligned. I felt extra motivated to go after chatting with Mike Potter at ProgDay; what a great guy and he clearly sacrifices to bring the music to the fans.
The show consisted of local classic prog band Deluge Grander followed by the main event, a group of musicians collectively titled Agents of Mercy for the first set and Karmakanic for the second set. I’m not an expert on their music or the history of the band. Roine Stolt is a legend in prog circles, but I did not groove on the Flower Kings much so I never fully explored his work.
Based on this, I’m not sure what it meant that I liked the Agents of Mercy set better. I liked the flow of melody and slightly smoother and more connected feel of the set. Deluge Grander was good but I missed most of their opener. I enjoyed Stolt’s solos most of all; in those moments I abruptly burst into what I now know as my “prog smile”, which is an involuntary reaction to something in the music that makes me happy. I’ll be sitting there, taking it all in, thinking about where I could shoot from without bothering other listeners, appreciating the drum beat or something when all of a sudden I’m grinning from ear to ear and I didn’t even see it coming.
It was an interesting contrast to Them Crooked Vultures the previous night. I thought it was funny that almost everyone in the Orion crowd whom I spoke with, when I was telling them about that show, didn’t know who Josh Homme/Queens of the Stone Age/Dave Grohl were. It’s funny because of every music critic I’ve read who says that Josh Homme has a prog sensibility (or maybe that’s just the guy who wrote or copy/pasted his wikipedia entry). That may be true, but I don’t think prog fans know about it!
Oh! And of course it was really late and a school night and everything so I decided to cut out before the 2nd encore. And I got my feet to the threshhold when lo and behold what did I hear – fucking Afterglow. Folks who have met me before laughed at me when I slunk back into the venue. Needless to say, it was transcendent.
Anyways, the next show at Orion is Sunday, Cheer Accident. I don’t know if I can handle the weird but I might consider going. Cheer Accident is weird, and … I think you have to be in the right mood.
1 Mpomyon 25 Oct 2009 at 7:08 pm
Excuse me? Afterglow? AFTERGLOW? After-frakking-glow?!? WOW. I’ve been digging Roine a lot this weekend on account of the new Transatlantic record. I got to see him several years back when that supergroup toured its first record, but I was nowhere near as close as you were at Orion.
Your pictures are (predictably) outrageous. Was that all you bitchin’ 85mm? What is that thing, like 1.2 or something? Anyway, great stuff and thanks for sharing.
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Kim Reply:
October 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Orion turns out to be a lovely place to see a show.
Yup – that was all the 85mm, it’s a wonder I bring any other lenses anywhere at all. It’s a 1.8. I did mess with some of the shots in Lightroom and there was a film crew filming (for the doc I tweeted about) so things were extra lit up which helps.
Thanks for your kind words – I was feeling pretty shitty about this set of photos. Composition is just hard when there are bottles of water and people’s heads in the shot and stuff.
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