Psychedelic rock reigned supreme at the Middle East Upstairs on Tuesday. Upon entering the club, order I could hear drone music blasting through the speakers.  Vivid colored patterns shooting through an overhead projector onto the stage previewed what was in store for the night.  While some familiar Boston based bands were here to open the show, the audience was here for Nik Turner: former member of the space-rock band Hawkwind.

Local neo-psychedelic band MOONTOWER began the night with a great garage rock inspired set.  Their punchy power chords drenched in reverb, vocal tradeoffs, and bright guitar solos sounded worthy of being the soundtrack for the early 70s in Southern California.  MOONTOWER was clearly doing something right as one lone audience member could not stop fanatically dancing.  After about three songs, they invited their sitar player onto the stage.  While the sitar’s relationship with psychedelic music may be a cliché at this point, its still cool as hell.  How often do you get to see live sitar?  The additional instrument added a new, droney twang to MOONTOWER’s already trippy sound.

With no time to waste, psych-rock locals Ghost Box Orchestra immediately kicked into a loud, heart racing set.  While they were absolutely the loudest band of the night, they executed such a clean sound.  While their guitar and keyboard work was extraordinary, I couldn’t stop focusing on their drummer.  Through the PA, the drums sounded exceptionally clear, with great fills in between steady tribal rhythms.
Ghost Box Orchestra’s sound brings with it a unique dilemma: you can either head bang to their heaviness or dance to their grooviness (or both).
They closed their set with a glorious crescendo of speed with Lodge II.  I’m always amazed that these guys come from our own backyard rather than roaming the deserts of Arizona.

Closing the night, Nik Turner came out of his dressing room with his saxophone in hand to play us a set of Hawkwind classics with his backup band Hedersleben.  Taking to the stage, Turner started his set off with an improved free form solo on his sax for about six minutes.  Afterwards the band began playing ambient, transmission sounds as Nik Turner chanted “This Is Earth Calling”.  This intro of noise lead into Hawkwind song Born To Go, a long prog-rock jam.  For most of the night, Turner’s voice was drenched in reverb.  While it certainly fit the psych-rock/space-rock motif of the night, it seemed like the reverb was just to cover up the fact Turner isn’t the same singer he was in 1970.  When he sang without reverb, his voice sounded flat and nasally.

It seemed this tour was a way for Nik Turner to reclaim his glory days of being in Hawkwind.  This was a man who got Lemmy from Motörhead his start as a bassist.  He had toured the world, playing stadiums.  Now he was playing essentially covers of his old songs to a moderately filled crowd at the Middle East Upstairs.  The music itself seemed very self indulgent.  Everyone onstage soloed over one another for extended periods of time and Turner recited unintentionally silly poetry.  What started off as a great night of psychedelic rock ended with a performance analogous to a joke-less Spinal Tap.