Now that I’ve completed my concert bucket list, I’ve been scrambling to put together a list of bands that I loved as an adult, but never got a chance to see live. Not necessarily bands I would die to see, but bands that I would regret not seeing in concert if they were to ever break up. The list is very much a work in progress, but Man or Astro-man? were near the top of it.
Much to my surprise, the extraterrestrial avant-space rock outfit was coming to Brooklyn to help premiere the DVD release of the Braniac documentary, Brainiac: Transmissions After Zero. I’m not going to go too much into detail as I really didn’t know much about Braniac prior to the show, but they were a hugely influential punk band from Dayton, Ohio whose career was cut short due to the tragic death of their singer, Tim Taylor. If you want to learn more, go check out the movie. I hear it’s awesome.
Speaking of awesome, Man or Astro-man? took to a stage emblazoned with day-glow streamers, piping and tubing. Trying to capture focus amidst the visual chaos was a challenge, but god, was the set-up cool to see.
The band ripped through dozens of classic soundscapes spanning an entire career and a crazy amount of genres. From space capades to straight up punk rock to the sounds of a literal dot matrix printer, Man or Astro-man? straight entertained the hell out of me and a packed Market Hotel for close to two hours. Whether you consider these guys (and gal) the modern-day Esquivel or punk rock artists, you can’t deny that they’ve held true to their vision for decades and it’s great to see them rocking as hard as ever.
