The Motet, lespecial & Anthill Cinema: St. Petersburg 03/23

The Motet, lespecial & Anthill Cinema: St. Petersburg 03/23

[Feature image by James Ketch. Many thanks to friends who shared photos for this review.]

The Motet and lespecial rolled into Jannus Live in St. Petersburg for the last of their four-night Florida run together, part of The Motet’s current tour on Saturday, March 23. Local stars Anthill Cinema were added to the lineup for even more fun.

It was a really good show, but it could have been better.

[For those of you who don’t give a damn about sound quality, please skip down a couple paragraphs.]

Jannus Live is simply not built for great sound, although many sound engineers have figured out how to get the very most out of it. Tyler, running sound for Anthill Cinema, did very well. Next up were lespecial. I know there were songs with lyrics. I could tell because the guys were at the mics, mouthing words. Most of them, unfortunately, were unintelligible. The usual suspects: bass and drums too loud. By comparison, the band’s set two weeks later at Resonate Suwannee was perfection, sound-wise. It CAN be done.

The Motet were on tour for the first time with powerhouse vocalist Sarah Clarke. Unfortunately, her vocals were buried too far down in the mix. We couldn’t hear her well enough. 

These band deserve better but were let down by sound engineers inadequate to the task.

We now return you to your regularly featured review.

Anthill Cinema are local favorites for one simple reason: they create superb original music and play it superbly. Simple formula. Their short set was a delight to kick off the night with great sound and song selection. Justino Lee Walker was in great voice singing songs he has woven into the band’s regular setlists, and the rhythm section of Vinny Svoboda, bass; Yral ‘datdudeondrums’ Morris; and Jimmy Rector, percussion, are as solid as it gets. The band’s sound gets a full, lush treatment created by keyboard wizard Mark Mayea. Bravo!

[Anthill Cinema: Big Blue Thumb, Jig/Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Life Happens to All of Us, ‘Hey Arnold’ Theme > Don’t Hide Your Love, When Smaller Becomes Small, Pop Song!, A Picasso’d Lie]

The gents of lespecial crushed a powerhouse set, sound issues aside. They excel in metal prog and also prog metal; they call themselves a “progtronic trio.” Fair enough. They grabbed two tracks from last year’s album Odd Times: “Rays” and a song for the rainforest, “Lungs of the Planet,” a full-on metal onslaught. The trio continued to leave it all on the stage, especially drummer Rory Dolan, on fire the entire set. 

Somewhere after “The Vessel,” they brought the sound way down, teasing briefly “In the Air Tonight” with soft vocals, right before slamming headlong into the Primus tune “Too Many Puppies” (I might have been the only one there not knowing the lyrics to sing along). Luke Bemand was doing his best Col. Claypool imitation; he crushed all set. So did Jonathan Grusauskas, who stepped up to help knock “Tonberry,” the fourth track selected from their 2020 album Ancient Homies, straight out of the courtyard.

[lespecial: Rays > Improv > Onlookers, Lungs of the Planet, Enter the Homieverse, Repeater, Machine Elf, The Vessel, In the Air Tonight, Buggn, Too Many Puppies, Tonberry]

The Motet’s visit to the Tampa Bay area was looooong overdue… but well worth the wait. It has been 25 years since drummer Dave Watts first got this project together. The Denver band opened with “Damn!” from the group’s 2015 album Totem, the first of numerous features for guitarist Ryan Jalbert. Another Totem gem was “Danger,” and then we were introduced to the dancing, smiling vocal queen Sarah Clarke; “Keep On Don’t Stoppin’” was the perfect choice and description of her on stage, and they followed that with the skyrocket “Rynodub,” both tunes from their eponymous 2014 release. Keyboard magician Joey Porter used his voice box on the former, and Jalbert shone again on the latter.

Drummer Watts had a nice feature, and the band roared on “Sunshine,” the first of three tunes from the band’s most recent album All Day. Clarke’s voice soared skyward on every song she sang, especially “Natural High” and “Get It Right,” which also provided a great showcase for bass monster Garrett Sayers. Porter continued to have his way with clavinet, electric piano, voice box, and more.

Drew Sayers had several features as well on tenor saxophone, one on “Funky Weekend” and another solid blow on encore tune “Highly Compatible,” one of several songs drawn from the 2019 album Death or Devotion.

They’re 25 years into this experiment. We’re looking forward to the next 25!

[The Motet: Damn!, Long Time, Danger, Keep On Don’t Stop It, Rynodub, Sunshine, Natural Light, Get It Right, We Got U, Funky Weekend, False Prophets, Back Seat, Supernova, Fool No More; E: Highly Compatible]