Earl Greyhound, the Middle East Downstairs, January 16, 2007
By JON GARELICK | January 22, 2007
The last time we saw our heroes they were playing in the blazing October sun on an outdoor stage facing the Harvard Coop. Last Tuesday, at the Middle East upstairs, Earl Greyhound provided refuge from the rapidly dropping temperature — rock-and-roll comfort food, hot and steamin’. You had your big-bottomed Sabbathy riffs, your boogie-metal guitar solos, pop dynamics and vocal harmonies, even a pop hook here and there, and everywhere the big riff rock of Zeppelin.They opened with “Monkey,” a seven-minute epic, guitarist Matt Whyte dropping to his knees for an effects-laden guitar solo of long trippy tones, then rising to his feet for some chanka-chank upstroked chords against Ricc Sheridan’s cowbell, and finally some upper-register hard-rock runs. The equally epic “I’m the One” shifted up and down in dynamics, from full-on chorus and vocal harmonies by Whyte and bassist Kamara Thomas to a boogie-metal guitar passage and even a down-tempo “Here Comes the Sun”–like guitar bridge. But it was held together by a repeated refrain of those big descending Sabbath chords. Earl Greyhound create the effect of heedless energy, but they’re ever aware of ebb and flow, tension and release. Call it meat-and-potatoes rock, but these are choice cuts, perfectly seasoned.
Did I mention that Earl Greyhound looked great? Whyte, long-faced, lanky, with broad-set eyes, long dirty-blond hair, and a red Western-style shirt open to the third snap button; high-cheekboned, big-Afro’d Thomas in a flouncy top, jeans, feathers, and beads; Sheridan sitting behind what looked like a concert-sized bass drum, in black T-shirt and shades, powering his cymbal strikes with ham-sized biceps. It was a too-short closing set — barely 45 minutes — but well worth the trip.
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