Black Moth Super Rainbow plays in Chicago's free music series

Pittsburgh-based experimental low-fi outfit Black Moth Super Rainbow brought their distinctive music to Chicago's Jay Pritzker Pavillion in Millenium Park.  The free event was part of the Edible Audible Picnic, one of Chicago's many musical events this summer.  The city has pretty much two months of good weather in a given year, which Chicago milks for all its worth by piling on the free music and festivities.

This may not have been the ideal gig for Black Moth Super Rainbow, being that their music is obviously targeted toward an audience a little less sober than the one yesterday.  Still, they made the best of the noon time set.  Plus, the lack of trippy lights, a staple at BMSR shows, was compensated for by the venue (shown below), an other-wordly, futuristic theater designed by Frank Ghery.  The design of the theater certainly complemented their surrealistic sound.

The band's electronic-based tunes were executed quite well on stage.  The live bass, guitar, and drums (rather than drum machines) gave it a more authentic vibe.  It never got too messy or muddy, even amidst the slew of vocoders, midi keyboards, and other analog electronic instruments.  Black Moth Super Rainbow deserves credit, if anything, for the fact that they can go crazy with all the effects without losing the groove.  In other words, nobody pulled a Billy Corgan and decided to screw around with their pedals without any structure.  The effects all went in a specific direction, which is the only way to make music of that calibur work.

The band kept the set under an hour, playing tracks from "Dandelion Gum" and their new album, "Eating Us".  They never verbally acknowledging the audience once, which is okay because it adds to Black Moth Super Rainbow's mystique.