I recently had the opportunity to catch Sleep for the first time while on their current tour when they stopped to play the House of Blues in Boston. I had been able to touch base with guitarist Matt Pike a few weeks earlier when High on Fire came through Cambridge as part of Converse’s Rubber TracksLive tour. According to Pike, the show had sold out, another four hundred or so tickets were released, and it sold out for a second time. Excellent.

The venue was just as packed as expected, however, I did not expect the number of hipsters that I saw. From where I was, it seemed like they may have outnumbered everyone else there. I also saw a sparkly fedora. It was strange, but interesting. The merch line was ridiculous and even longer than most of the ones that I got stuck in at the GWAR-B-QUE the week before. I was lucky enough to make it in and out in under ten minutes but there were quite a few that were standing in line for the majority of the show while merchandise sold out faster than I’ve ever seen before.

Openers Earthless and Heavy Blanket (J. Mascius) took the stage together to play a good chunk of their EP In a Dutch Haze (Outer Battery Records) in one long instrumental piece. I have minimal knowledge of either entity outside of this single experience so I can only comment on them as whole. They were great and you really don’t need to use words when you can let the music speak for you instead.

Onto the main event! With a set clocking in at two hours, this was basically “An Evening with Sleep”. I’m used to seeing Pike play the role of front man with High on Fire, but I was great to finally see Al Cisneros in person. I’m pretty sure I annoyed the people around me enough with my Pike related fangirling anyway though. I just about lost it when they played ‘Aquarian’. Pretty much anything off of Holy Mountain (Earache Records) makes me babble incoherently and that album made up roughly half of their set, including the crowd favorite, ‘Dragonaut’. Other honorable mentions go to ‘From Beyond’, ‘Sonic Titan’, and ‘Dopesmoker’. We were also fortunate enough to witness the live debut of the band’s latest single ‘The Clarity’ which had been featured as part of the Adult Swim Singles program for 2014. The only thing I would have asked would have been the addition of ‘The Druid’ to the set list. Listen, I’m pretty sure we all would have stuck around for a three or four hour long performance. Maybe we’ll have better luck next time. Until then, heed their call and follow the smoke to the riff filled land.

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Earthless on Facebook

Heavy Blanket on Facebook

ALEIDA LA LLAVE