2.23.07 Om @ The Echo
Generally speaking, Friday nights are not my designated time for spiritual uplift and enlightenment. But when such lofty pursuits are delivered on a maelstrom of hypnotic rock heaviness, who can argue? And Om definitely delivered during their set at the Echo last night. The duo features two former members of revered stoner rock pioneers Sleep, and expectations were high, to say the least, going into the show (“They’re the BEST band I’ve seen in FIVE years!,” my friend Zach told me during his DJ set at Cha Cha the night before). And it was epic.
All of those chants singer/bassist Al Cisneros works into his lyrics about potentiality, the expansiveness of the universe, and surpassing the limitations of the physical body must do some kind of strange magic. Because, even without being able to make out the lyrics, and just simply tracing the serpentine patterns of the music, while standing amid a capacity crowd of heavily-bearded heavy rock fans, one of whom felt moved to raise his hands into the air as if tearing the sun from the sky, (which somehow seemed to capture the mood of the music perfectly), while another wasted fan fell down to the ground, heavily, I felt good, light, happy. Om indeed. Word on the street is that Cisneros makes his living teaching chess to children. Those must be some deep kids.
