Incendiary

I just saw Buckethead at the Recher in Towson. His opening act was a mohawk-sporting hulk named Wolff (of Drums and Tuba) who, living up to his absent band's moniker, spent the better part of an hour doing unwholesome things with, and to, a tuba. We then stood for another interminable hour with an ever-more-restless crowd, waiting for the virtuoso to appear. Just as we began to ask ourselves "How long would you wait for Buckethead?" he descended upon us. The rest of the evening is a haze of shrill and blinding shredding, the music that Disney plays in its animatronic attractions, Buckethead dispensing gifts from a giant blue sack, an excellent John Williams interlude, and some genuinely solid and meaty metal riffs. The man, it must be said, is a prodigy. At times it was entirely unclear if he was playing the guitar or giving it multiple orgasms. My ears still feel cotton-plugged and my legs ache from standing, but the 90-minute set flew by. Not all of Buckethead's music is gentle on the ears, nor even entirely pleasant, but it is powerful if for nothing other than the immense skill it evinces. And his more melodic tracks can be perfectly sublime.

Did I mention that he wears a KFC bucket over his featureless white mask and does not speak during shows? Well, he's earned the right to be as strange as he wants. When you're that good with a guitar, no one cares what you're wearing on your head.