A goat is an animal that’s often associated with the idea of ritual sacrifice, which is fitting since after watching swedish psych band Goat in concert I felt like I was involved in some strange kind of ceremony. One in which the band’s heavy, funky psychedelia acts as an invocation to some ancient, forgotten deity who also likes to party at Mardi Gras every now and then.
The enigmatic Swedes claim to hail from Korpilombolo, which, according to the band’s mythology, has a history of voodoo practice. The band definitely plays up the mystical vibe in their live performance, with all of the band members wearing costumes of some sort and the two masked female vocalists singing mostly in unison and dancing about the stage.
After leaving the stage just before 1:00, the band responded to the chants of “Goat!” and came out for an encore. That’s pretty rare at these sort of things. The two singers left the stage when they were finished their part and the band played an extended jam to finish it off. After seeing Swans and Spiritualized earlier in the night, I was eager to see them them take it further in that direction and turn it into a 20 minute opus but they were over time already and Pissed Jeans did have to go on still.
Despite the constraints of festival set times, the band still put on a completely entertaining show with the time they had. Definitely one of the more memorable sets of NXNE.