Unknown Mortal Orchestra (photo by by Juan Ortiz-Arenas)
UMO’s camp required film photography for the concert and our negatives were unfortunately destroyed during development
In 2010, Ruban Neilsen abruptly left the biggest punk band in New Zealand, The Mint Chicks, and started what we now know as Unknown Mortal Orchestra (UMO). UMO began as a recording project searching for a hidden sound in between 60’s bands The Zombies and Love. Neilsen fed those impulses with a modern bedroom-pop taste that created anarchic psychedelic landscapes within a post-funk world where a fuzzy-phasey guitar solo is always looming around the corner. There’s a buoyant escapism in the music and druggy lyrics that catapulted UMO into the US indie conversation back in 2010, on the strength of just music blog coverage (back when that was still a thing!). Subsequently UMO’s style has been audibly influential to a slough of bands such as POND and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. We caught the act live on April 22nd at the still-new-feeling Roadrunner in Brighton.
Ruban Neilsen’s voice was much drier, clearer, and stronger than I remember when I saw them last in 2014. I noticed a new guitar – the iconic Jagstang is gone, replaced by a custom Baranik. It goes without saying that the Neilsen Baranik is a smooth upgrade and sounded mega. Bass player Jacob Portrait has a lightning fast thumb picking technique with finger flourishes. He also provided vocal harmonies, such as on “The Opposite of Afternoon,” which garnered woos from the crowd. Keyboardist Christian Li provided grandiose entrances for the band in “The Garden” and “Multi-Love” as well as a sweet keyboard counterpoint throughout. The keys augmented the mid-range and allowed for Neilsen to have someone to play off of for instrumental melodic drive. Ruban’s brother Kody and longtime collaborator (especially if you count The Mint Chicks) was on the drum kit. Kody tore it up, especially on the extended rendition of “Thought Ballune.”
The square formation featured Ruban and bassist Jacob Portrait up front, with Kody and Christian in the back, amps pointing at the guys from the sides. The backdrop was bare except for a gigantic Chicago (the musical) inspired sign that shone the acronym-name in bold. There were strobe light blitzes accompanying bone chilling guitar solos on “Nadija” and “So Good at Being in Trouble.” The former was a new fan favorite off the new album, V, as many fans sang the chorus quietly to themselves. The latter was the opposite — a downbeat version of “Trouble” had the whole 3,000 person crowd swaying and singing along loudly, until Ruban threw it into reverse for a guitar loop pedal solo and Li played a descending arpeggio in what was an electrifying breakdown. An uptempo “Multi-Love” went hard and that ended the spectacular first set.
The encore experienced some unexpected turbulence upon takeoff. The first song had a clap along started by drummer Kody that the crowd never quite latched onto, and on the next tune Ruban had an early pedal malfunction — thankfully a guitar tech quickly swooped in quickly to rectify the situation. The highlight of the encore was an infectious version of The Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street.” If I’ve learned anything about New England, the home of “Cherry Garcia” ice cream, it’s that the locals appreciate a good Dead cover. Back at the merch table, I noticed UMO is keeping up the ‘60s style brand: a Woodstock-ian poster and tie dye t-shirts.
I am left wishing they’d reserved more time to play singles. The first songs that broke the band “How Can You Luv Me” and “Ffunny Friends” were absent — at one point Neilsen apologized for playing older material to the early-20 something crowd but I wish they had included more from that time period. Also noticeably missing was the new album lead single, the ukulele strummer “I Killed Captain Cook.” The acoustic Captain Cook diss track would have been icing on the cake, a moment that would have added more lyrical and musical depth to an already dynamic show. The press rollout really hypes the Hawaiian connection to this record so as someone who was born in Honolulu, its exclusion from the set list was confusing and disappointing.
After the final song of the night, Nielsen held his guitar up with one hand triumphantly. Rightfully so. UMO had conquered their final performance of their US tour, which was their first leg of any tour since 2019. Neilsen claimed the Boston gig felt like the best performance of the stretch. Certainly could have been.