Released, and still available, for free on their Bandcamp page, King Buffalo‘s Live at Burning Man is a great capture of them doing what they do best – melting minds and faces, and what better place to do it than the Burning Man Festival during their first trip there?
Starting with a scorching version of “Silverfish,” the trio immediately hook the crowd – many of whom might not have known who they were. It was the first time they’d played the festival, after all. The guitar solo on “Grifter” sounds like a test car racing across a salt flat. People are already shouting, “Love you guys!” by the third song (“Shadows”).
“Longing to Be the Mountain” is their ten-minute-plus psychedelic take on a classic Zen story. “Repeater” is probably on rotation in a Zen retreat on a mountaintop somewhere, as it seems to make you levitate. “Orion,” one of their best-known tracks, absolutely rips here. You can tell that King Buffalo and the Burning Man crowd were feeling it by this point, and everyone knew they were experiencing something special.
“Red Star 1 & 2” is a massive double dose of mind-altering sounds (nearly fifteen minutes in length). “Loam” is trippy and heavy at the same time. The set ends with the epic “Cerberus,” sending the Burning Man crowd back into the desert with visions of things on the horizon they hadn’t noticed before the show began.
King Buffalo are, despite their frequent touring, still a bit of a secret. This live album gives us all another reason to learn their secrets, the number of which seem to increase with each listen and performance.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to King Buffalo!]
