117. The Aristocrats
Heaven
18 December 2015
Two years earlier, one of my best mates and I had found ourselves holed up at The Garage in Highbury, nursing drinks whilst three actual wizards in civilian clothing conjured jazz-fusion alchemy in 11/16 time signatures. It was equal parts mathematically mind-bending and vaguely preposterous, like watching Gandalf running a Fender masterclass. That band was The Aristocrats, the brainchild of guitar deity Guthrie Govan, bass savant Brian Beller, and human octopus Marco Minnemann, each of them so drenched in prog credentials the aroma of patchouli and fretboard oil rose from the stage in waves.
I remember thinking at the time that while their technical brilliance was undeniable, watching them was like spectating the Olympic finals for musical virtuosity, there was something faintly lacking in the feels department. It was all mind, no heart: a ceaseless, lyric-less display of instrumental prowess where songs could easily be mistaken for competition entries.
Yet here we were again, two years on, with the lure of their third album Tres Caballeros pulling us back in. The new material had promise, it was more muscular, more dynamic. Before all that, though, dinner, and in stark contrast to the prog nerd fest we were about to re-enter, we kicked things off with lobster and an indecently good bottle of wine at Balthazar, a pre-Christmas splurge that nearly had us missing the entire first act.
Bellies full, we schlepped to Heaven, a venue that, as any London gig-goer knows, sits somewhere between gay club, student rave den, and inexplicable home for transient prog-metal bands. The shift from white linen to sticky floors was... abrupt. But no matter: the wizards soon took the stage, and what followed was, by any objective measure, extraordinary.
The show was tighter, leaner, less of a surgical dissection of musical theory and more like an actual gig. The interplay between Govan and Beller had matured, their fretboard duels more like playful sparring than a formal masterclass. Minnemann, meanwhile, still appeared to be playing with at least three extra phantom limbs. Sure, there were still the requisite 14-minute solos and the crowd was visibly dominated by middle-aged men with artisanal beards and real ale t-shirts, but the set had an energy and cohesion that the previous outing hadn’t quite managed.
Would I go again? I’m not sure. There’s a finite shelf life to watching even the most gifted musicians showing off, and I’d rather not spend too much of what is left of my life surrounded by men debating 7/8 versus 13/8 time signatures. But that night, at least, the stars aligned, three caballeros in their prime, casting spells with wood, strings, and a metric tonne of wizardry.