STS9 – January 2nd – Fillmore Auditorium

Photos by Jim Mimna

The Scene: It had been a while since I had last seen STS9 (2009 at Red Rocks to be exact) and I certainly had not seen them since founding member and bassist David Murphy left the band, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  But, as I got my ticket and rounded the corner on Clarkson, the line stretched almost all the way to 16th street.  It seemed that the band was more popular than ever and I knew that new bass player Alana Rocklin was holding it down.  It was a chilly night and we all huddled together in the line under flat brims and hoodies.  STS9 has always been about vibrations and they were palpable standing in that line.  When I finally blustered into the Fillmore thirty minutes later the vibrations were much more than palpable.

STS9: Due to the line I had missed the first two songs (“Metameme” and “Grow”) but the band was in the middle of a crunchy “Oil & Water” when I finally made my way down to the floor.  This song has a pixelated quality (much like the light show) with heavy electronics—like fractals unfolding in your head—and is even a bit sinister sounding.  One thing I’ve always liked about Sound Tribe is that a band so positive can sometimes sound so evil.  They really express the dichotomous nature of life in this way.  Fittingly, next came the dancey classic “4 Year Puma” off the band’s first album, Interplanetary Escape Vehicle, with the crowd interjecting “whoos” after the hits.  I was also reminded on this song of what a beast Zach Velmer is on the kit.  Next came two tracks off 2005’s Artifact; the uplifting, third eye anthem “Trinocular” into the laid back groove of “Vibyl” with female voice samples.  Rocklin really shined on “Vibyl” with some bass slapping which the crowd absolutely ate up.  After “Vibyl” came the creepy harp-like strains of “Nautilus” from keyboardist David Phipps, which almost has an East Asian vibe to it.  As with many Sound Tribe songs “Nautilus” started out slow but quickly developed into a funky groove before blasting off with an intense build up.  I was pretty stoked when I heard them transition into “Aimlessly” which is another song that is delightfully spooky and retained it’s position as one of my favorites.  Much to my disappointment it was a fairly quick tease, but then they closed the second set with another classic in “Crystal Instrument,” which really showcases the band’s Jazz influences (especially guitarist Hunter Brown).  This and the “Aimlessly” tease definitely had me wondering what the band had in store for the second set.

I was not disappointed.  STS9 opened the second set with “World Go Round;” a song I had never heard before but instantly liked because well…it was catchy and danceable.  They then segued into “Totem” and I later found out that they had been doing these two songs in tandem a few times in 2014.  At this point the band dropped a monster sandwich with a Stevie Wonder cover “Too High” bookended by the electro/funk/jazz fusion of “Mobsters.”  After this tasty treat we were treated to another classic off Artifact in “GLOgli” which took us back into a more electronic mode that for the most part they kept up as the band rounded out the set with the trancey “Walk To The Light” and the crowd favorite “Really Wut?”  The encore kept with this theme in the endlessly trippy slow buildup of “Phoneme” off of their album Ad Explorata, which roughly translates to “Forward Into The Unexplored.”  STS9 has and probably always will do just that when it comes to their unique music.

Energy: A
Musicianship: A
Sound: B+
Stage Presence: B
Set/Light Show: A+

Overall: A-