In any case, Neurosis obviously knows how to pick their cohorts. To say that Neurosis 'curated' the concert seems a mite pretentious - considering so many of the bands, such as Amber Asylum, are simply good friends. Thankfully, Von Till, Kelly and the rest of Neurosis are restless musically. Vacillating between eerie waltz rhythms and the sleepy tempo of a lullaby, Von Till's set reached a noisy yet controlled climax as the vocalist sang, 'Why can't I rest a while?' down,' he whispered as Joe Goldring played electric guitar quietly beside him and Amber Asylum violinist/vocalist Kris Force and cellist Jackie Gratz plucked along softly. Von Till was up next, strumming an acoustic guitar as he sang gentle, retrained ballads about sirens luring sailors their deaths: 'Ashes, ashes, we all fall. At moments, it was hard to tell whether he was playing an actual song or simply tuning his guitar.

Imagine Cat Power's Chan Marshall as a tattooed trucker. Kelly opened the first concert in the series, singing simple, minor-chord tunes and accompanied only by his own acoustic guitar. On Friday, Shellac kept it noisy and off-kilter at a show with Neurosis, Zeni Geva and Oxbow. On Thursday, a Southern-Gothic Michael Gira, formerly of the Swans, went unplugged, headlining a largely subdued, acoustic evening with Amber Asylum, Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till and Neurosis bassist/vocalist Scott Kelly. Your tribe was out in force during the first two nights of the festival. Or if you had the facial hair of a satyr, more piercings than a tailor and as many black T-shirts as a Gap store. Or if you resembled Henry Rollins dragged over 100 miles of bad road. The cardboard signs asking for extra tickets outside the Great American Music Hall box office on Friday night before the Shellac show said it all, including one that promised 'cold hard cash' and a pint of O-negative blood, which appeared to be sloshing around in a hospital-ready plastic bag dangling from an elaborately jury-rigged sign.īay Area metal band Neurosis' Beyond the Pale festival, which ran from Thursday, August 16, to Sunday, August 19, was the place to be if you called yourself a Goth, metalhead or punk. August 16 and 17 at Great American Music Hall, SF

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