On the road for Sonic Citadel, their first release in five years, noise rock legends Lightning Bolt performed at sparse festivals, punk clubs, and basement scenes across Europe and the continental US. The band topped off the American leg of their tour with a performance at Pioneer Works, a far-out Brooklyn non-profit gallery and culture center. And when I say far out, I mean it. Stationed at the center of Red Hook, and founded by contemporary artist David Yellin in 2012, Pioneer Works acts as a venue and a cultural center alike, hosting residencies and arts events, as well as community classes and discourse that dive into skills both practical (costume making) and theoretical (The Trans Sound of Black Freedom). As a venue, the space is dynamic. High ceilings, tiered levels, and a clean, spacious, brick and cement interior. The Garden was particularly impressive. Read: not one bonfire, but two!

The set started when drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale donned his infamous ragtag luchador mask, which doubles as a microphone built into a telephone receiver for added distortion. Chippendale and bandmate Brian Gibson on a bass modified with banjo strings, have a knack for making something out of nothing: looping riffs and psychedelic, face-melting thrash with a limited cast of just two, often sidelined, instruments. Sonic Citadel dialed some of their more experimental tendencies back. But some things never change. The two Brians played their music loud and fast. They kept the energy high and the transitions short. Songs long as a minute and a half rocked the crowd just as much as the six-minute hard edge homage to punk predecessors “Hüsker Dön’t.”

It comes as no surprise; Lightning Bolt have a reputation for slaying the local punk scene wherever they go. This is a band that prefers live gigs to studio recordings, and it shows. Before the set started, a man I talked to from Chippendale and Gibson’s native Rhode Island told me excitedly that the first time he ever saw a guy get punched in the face was ten years ago at a Lightning Bolt basement show in Providence.

Well maybe something has changed since then. It could be an aging fan base, though most concert-goers were twenty- to thirty-somethings, or it could be aging ideals about what it means to be hardcore in the hardcore scene. In the renegade face of Trumpian politics, to be punk is to be kind. Or maybe it was the posh, arthouse venue. By the end of the set, there had been no violence. Lightning Bolt fans did not thrash, nor punch, nor kick. All comradery and support, hyped up on raw verve and ear-drum-blasting noise. At one point, amidst all the pushing and shoving and lifting and grabbing, I actually clasped hands with a fellow anonymous mosher. Can anyone tell me when in the history of mankind this has ever happened before? Kindest mosh pit ever. All warm fuzzies and Wonderful Rainbows after the Lightning Bolt storm from this softie.

Art Rock Pioneers Lightning Bolt Electrify a Saturday Night in Red Hook

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