Live Review: Dark Mofo Festival, Boris, The Odeon Theatre, 12.06.22

Japanese heavy rock royalty, Boris, played to a hugely appreciative Dark Mofo audience at The Odeon Theatre here in Hobart. The band were celebrating 30 years together and the 20th anniversary of their 2002 classic, Heavy Rock.

They had come to see long-standing members, Takeshi (on twin-necked guitar/bass and lead vocals), Wata (lead guitar and theremin) and the flamboyant Atsuo (drums and gong) join with fellow Japanese bass-master, Tokie, deliver a masterful lesson in heavy rock music (was it experimental rock, noise rock, avant-garde metal, doom metal, post-metal, drone metal, sludge metal, psychedelic rock or stoner rock…..or was it in part all of these subgenres)? For me, the inability to tightly pigeon-hole their music during this performance (and across their entire catalogue of music for that matter) made it all the more exciting and vibrant.

The album was played in its entirety, from the pounding doom of opener, ‘Heavy Friends’ winding through feverishly-driven tracks such as ‘Korosu’ and ‘Rattlesnake’ before finally finding their way through to album closer, ‘1970’ and the addition of a couple of further songs from their extensive repertoire for the encore that was enthusiastically called for by the adoring crowd.

Boris’s music perfectly embodies one of the unspoken philosophies of the Dark Mofo Festival in that they have an alternative, eclectic character which draws you in, and compels you to look further into the realms of the non-standard art and music which so stands this festival apart from most others.