88BoaDrum: The Boredoms, Now with 91 Drummers

There is good news and better news. The good news is that the Los Angeles edition of 88BoaDrum featuring the Boredoms was a smashing success, an outstanding experience with a beauty and power not to be understated and a couple thousand happy customers. The better news is that if you saw the Boredoms within the last several months, you can stop kicking yourself for missing 88; you saw a slightly better show, by a hair.

The 77BoaDrum event that occurred at Brooklyn Bridge Park on 7/7/07 at 7:07 PM inspired superlative praise. Whispers of "c'mon, what was the big deal" weren't nonexistent, but they definitely sounded like whispers; the overriding sentiment of the response was that of having witnessed a one-time wonder. I have not yet caught wind of comparisons between this performance and last year's; I plain wasn't there last year, myself. I was, however, at their performance at the Fillmore this March, and it was, and remains, the finest live expression of Eye's post-guitar, drum-fetish euphoria I've seen yet.

Before the critique, however, the gushing. This Friday's 88BoaDrum — 8/8/08, 8:08 PM sharp — was a glorious gathering. Anyone who's anyone (to me) was at the La Brea Tar Pits to watch, including a big ol' group of friends and acquaintances, personal and mutual, and a spotting of Eric Wareheim of Cartoon Network's Tim & Eric. The crowd was just the right size. The 88 extra drumkits were arranged in rings around the podium that the Boredoms performed on; and that does mean, yes, that there were actually 91 drummers. A few minutes before 8:08 PM, someone (I assume Hisham Bharoocha, the artistic director of both 77- and 88BoaDrum) came on a microphone and requested that every drummer who had not yet come to their position please do so. The announcement inspired the amusing sight of 20 or more folks, who had previously been chilling, rushing from the audience area to their kits.

The piece did not begin with a bang, but a sizzle of 91 people rolling on cymbals. A pounding on the downbeat of a very slow four began, and one by one the drummers switched from cymbals to that very same downbeat pound. By the time everyone was in unison, the empty spaces were filled with free fills from the various percussionists, one or a few at a time. Eventually Eye was using his enormous staff to smash his seven-necked guitar contraption; eventually everyone was chaotically smashing their sets at the same time and causing a transcendental noise-mess.

Pacing was not quick. Even when the tempo rose, every idea took its time. Marking the first half of 88BoaDrum was an extended Krautrock jam, the first time I've thought directly of Neu! when listening to the Boredoms despite their penchant for the motorik. Advantage: Boredoms; Neu! never had a rhythm section this big. The second half came with a quite simple and quite beautiful gesture by Eye, controlling a white noise like gentle ocean waves and motioning for the drummers to follow his tide with their cymbals. The final movement was a majestic song with call-and-response sing/chants from Eye and Yoshimi, and no matter how long everything felt in the moment, it was "before you knew it" that every drummer was going back to cymbal rolls one by one.

As an event, 88BoaDrum worked like a charm. As a musical piece by the Boredoms, 88BoaDrum didn't feel like a regression as much as an advance that required some compromises. In quartet form, the Boredoms have honed their focus and chops such that the piece's movements are now unpredictable, summoning numerous polyrhythms and evoking many genres, perhaps setting chaotic improvisation against a locked groove, perhaps going through a complicated series of unison patterns or passing a pattern in a circle (or triangle, as the case may be with three drummers), and definitely singing, chanting, shouting, different things all throughout, the whole shebang led by Yamataka Eye.

Versions of these elements were present in 88BoaDrum, and a friend who had also seen their latest quartet piece still felt moved to comment that this performance was yet more evidence of their ability to compose for drumkit ensembles. He was right, but I definitely noticed a sort of holding back in order to keep the 88 extra drummers in order. Eye used his voice far less often than he has lately in performance, and the Boredoms themselves were generally constrained to uncomplicated, four-and-eight-based patterns. The sound was even less intense and loud than their shows normally are.

There was of course compensation, even if only by the fact of the size and nature of the ensemble gathered here. Where the patterns would usually be more complex and the sound usually louder, the sonic nuance and visual spectacle of the amplified quartet being surrounded and backed up by 88 unamplified drumkits made up for it. In other words, nothing's stopping me from trying to get to 99BoaDrum, if it happens. 88BoaDrum was moving and exceptional. My overall takeaway, however, is that a Boredoms show, whether with 80 drummers or 91 drummers or merely three, is a Boredoms show, and a Boredoms show is a moving and exceptional one to see. The fact that they remain so strange, that they can remain the Boredoms, and can even put on an event like this is proof enough; they are top tier, world class, and amen.