Mr Bungle

7th March 1996

London Astoria 2

You can also read a very brief review of the 2nd album:

First of all there was no support because Mr Bungle had so much equipment on stage, and the London Astoria 2 only has a small one.

I guess what you really want know is what clothes they wore. Mike had on shoes, trousers and a T-shirt saying "MAAILMAANMESTARI SUOMI 95" Apparently this means World Champions Finland (hockey?, thanks Susie and Bono!) Dunn was wearing a really scary rubber mask throughout the whole show, and Trey, was wearing a balaclava hood type thing!

Track-list

Part of the problem with recognition was that several of the songs were done differently and all the songs were played back to back, Mike didn't talk once, neither did anyone else come to that!

After School Special
? kind of death metally, I don't think it was everyone I went to high school...
Desert Search For Techno Allah
Backstrokin'
? kind of death metally, again I don't think it was everyone I went high school...
Chemical Marriage
The Bends
? Sounded like a kind of old, cheesy romantic love song, sung in Spanish I think!
Mike sings in a loud whisper?
? Phlegmatics
Scratching turntable solo type thing!
? This could have been Phlegmatics as well!
? Something that sounded like Henri Mancini wrote it!
? Mike makes lots of chicken and other weird and wonderful noises!
Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz
? Carry Stress in the Jaw
Violenza Domestica

Encore:

Mike goes "wooooooooo" lots !
Secret Song, Grandpa Simpson, they kicked me out whatever you wanna call it, but with no singing!
Strange feed back/interference from radio, with lots of flashing lights and thing!

End.
I was disappointed that they didn't play Merry Go Bye Bye or Platypus.

Now for the hard bit, describing this miraculous event in my life! It was weird! Yes that about sums it up, weird! It's so hard to describe partly because the album is so strange, and also because I haven't been to a gig of this sort of music before! Well to be honest I've never heard a CD like Disco Volante before!

The crowd's reaction varied lots, depending on the song. The fast ones went down really well, but the slow ones, partly due to there length, seemed a bit boring after a while. It didn't help that Mike didn't look like he was enjoying himself, but that could have been due to the crowd, a vicious circle I guess! I think there was a lot of people there wanting stuff from the first album (remember Mr Bungle didn't tour the 1st album in Europe!), so if they hadn't heard much from the Disco Volante(only released here a week or 2 before the gig) they wouldn't have had chance to get into it.

Musically they all played very well, Desert Search For Techno Allah was absolutely amazing and Mike's screaming/singing was very good, especially on song 8 (weird Spanish sounding one!).

I can't actually think of much more to say, except that when I left, I was a bit confused as to how much I enjoyed it! Bits of it I loved, bits of it I was bored, even though I love Disco Volante. But in saying that I'm very glad I went, since I got to see them, but I'm not sure it lived up to my 5 year wait expectations! Basically if you love the new album you'll enjoy the show, if you don't you'll hate it and will want to leave early like a lot of people did!

Gigs Index

Main Index