The Sunn O))) also rises

I am fully aware what that the following paragraphs you are about to read sound hyperbolic, foolish, and/or just plain wrong.

But Sunn O))) (from now on, Sunn because I’m lazy) was, by far, the most unique live experience I have ever had. When I am old and grey, my memory fading, there is no chance I will forget even one aspect of what I saw that night.

I am no Faulkner or Hemingway, and even if I were, the English language does not have words to properly describe what transpired 9/19 at AS220 in Providence, RI. I was hypnotized, mesmerized, flabbergasted, horrified, stunned, and amazed all at once. If you don’t feel like reading why, let me summarize: if you, in even the most minor way, love music, go see Sunn. Do it. Pay the $15 and drive an hour and a half. Make a friend go with you. You don’t even have to have heard one song by them. Just go. You will not regret it.

Now, one man’s feeble attempt to encapsulate just what it was like.

As my friend and I turned the corner on Empire Street a good two hours before the scheduled start time, we heard it: a fuzzed out, booming, feedback-filled note that sounded like some sort of primordial creature’s roar. We were at least a half block away from gallery/restaurant/venue AS220 and we heard the sound check. At that very moment I knew much of the rumors about Sunn were true.

Sunn is a doom metal band—a genre they probably didn’t invent, but sure as hell carry the flag for. They can be defined in a few words. Heavy. Loud. Slow. This is not the home of blast beats and face-melting guitar riffs. This is the home of one note stretched to the point of numbness, of bass so heavy you can feel them in your stomach and of songs longer than some films.

The band’s reputation precedes them. Stories of fleeing concertgoers, unprepared for what was unleashed upon them, are not uncommon. Loosened bowels and stomach contents from the sheer sonic weight coming out of dozens of imposing amps, was something I fully expected. And the black cowls, heavy fog, and minimal lighting creating a nightmarish vision.

To my knowledge, no one puked or fled the scene in terror on this Saturday night. But what did happen is nearly as strange. As the plodding, cavernous sounds of Sunn’s Monolith’s and Dimensions filled the small venue, everyone stood motionless. Unlike most shows, earplugs were standard issue. The twenty or so amps, along with the band’s rep, caused everyone to wear protection. The earplugs, along with the bled together nature of Sunn’s music, had a strange isolating effect on everyone present. You were relegated to your own head and whatever sounds Sunn decided to subject you to. No talking (no one could hear you if you tried), no dancing (difficult without a drum beat), nary a fist pump in sight (your arms were too heavy).

This was a wholly unique experience for me. No matter who it was, I had always seen some sort of movement during concerts. Not so here. One well-placed push would have knocked over the entire crowd, that’s how paralyzed we all were. The volume of the music—the waves of sound actually hitting you—made your clothes vibrate. For the vast majority of the show I stood with my arms at my sides just absorbing the wall of sound. There were moments where I had to shake myself in an effort to snap out of this trance Sunn had created.

And then, like something out of a Hitchock movie, Sunn decided to really mess everyone’s night up. As had happened a couple times earlier, guest vocalist of the night Attila Csihar made himself scare while the other members played on. In what seemed like an instant something appeared on stage. It was Csihar, but instead of his cowl, he was adorned in a full-body burlap sack, complete with a crown of sticks and an arm covered in bark. The scream he unleashed as his faceless visage scanned the crowd was unearthly.

For at least thirty seconds I was legitimately scared of what I was seeing. This also marked the only time my friend and I acknowledged each other during the show, as he turned to me, mouth agape and eyes wide open. We were lulled into such a stupor that this costume, this stark change in what we thought we were beginning to understand, was horrible.

Just as the shock of the tree monster had worn off, the show was over, the band finally lifting the veil and accepting applause. There was no encore (there never is), nor did there need to be. We were all spent.

The combination of a cold New England night, it being past midnight, and my body readjusting to not being bombarded with sound, stepping outside was like jumping into a lake in January. “If a car hit me,” I remarked as we crossed the street, “I don’t even think I would feel it.”

As I started the two-hour drive back to Cape Cod at 1 a.m., I knew it was just what I needed. The lonely highway and silence allowed me to process what had just gone on. I probably would have failed a field sobriety test had I been pulled over.

If that doesn’t make you want to see Sunn O))), I don’t know what will.