Show Review

My friend had been pestering me forever, “Dude, you gotta listen to these guys. I know it’s not normally your thing but…”

“But then why should I listen to them?”

“Lotus is different, give them a chance”

Road trip after road trip my friend was constantly putting them on for a listen, with me always responding, “Not now, I’m driving.” My friend sent me their CDs, that only got the cursory listen, but now in hindsight makes me wonder, “How did I miss that?” I had read all the hype in the magazines and online. I had seen how their most recent release Nomad seemingly appeared on every year-end best of list. But much like eating vegetables when I was a little kid, I gave them little chance, it just seemed like something I would not like even though I had never really tasted it. I would close my eyes, hold my nose and finish it quickly.

They were playing a show at the Funk Box, just around the corner from my house, and I finally decided to heed my friend’s advice and give them a try. I arrived just as the opening band Derivative was finishing up their set with a Stevie Wonder song. I grabbed a beer, found a good spot on the rail upstairs and settled in to see what all the fuss was about.

At 10:40 Lotus ambled on stage, without so much as a hello, they launched into their opening number, “Sift.” At just that same moment BGE (Baltimore Gas &Electric) must have experienced a huge power spike, due largely to the massive array of pedals and effect boards the band had strewn across the stage. There were more pedals present on stage, than at the Tour de France.

Starting off with a heavy guitar driven sound, the five-piece slowly slid into a more electronic realm as Luke Miller moved from guitar over to his keyboard set-up. It became the dance music of my dreams, being played with live instruments, yet retaining that hard-hitting drum-machine sound, colored by bursts of pure electronica, all the while retaining that live “rock” feel.

A lighting rig that rose up from behind the band, bathing the audience in a shower of colors and dense atmospheric smoke, enabled Lotus to put on a big time show on a small stage. With all the blasts of light and smoke, the band seemed to recede to the corner of the stage, hiding in the shadows, peering out at the audience from behind their instruments. This allows their music and their work as a tight cohesive musical unit to come to the forefront and take the spotlight from any one individual. Lotus’ sound blends together effortlessly, with no particular instrument standing out. This effortless blending is tough for bands to achieve, as they all must sacrifice some of their own sonic territory for the greater good of the song. This is what defines Lotus as a band.

With lead guitarist Luke Remple squeezing out guitar lines that sound as if they could have been sung, and drummer Steve Clemens and percussionist Chuck Morris pulsating rhythms providing the backbone, Lotus got the crowd at the Funk Box up and shaking. As they mentioned at the end of the night, “It looks like you gave the springs a work-out” (in reference to the venue’s spring loaded floor). The first set clocked in at an hour and twenty minutes, and they wrapped it up with a rocking “Jump Off.”

The second set saw them start out with a much more ambient, spacey approach. The music slowly built up the tension throughout the set, bringing the crowd to the edge of out-of-control, even inspiring one dance-crazed fan to hop on stage and boogie with the band, before being coaxed back down. The band continued to build up the tension and tempo with each song, before slowly releasing the crowd from their grip. “Greet the Mind” segued seamlessly to the high-octane set-closer “Umbilical Moonrise” which was a non-stop barrage of the senses. As the guy standing behind me so eloquently put it, “All that shit before was just the build up for this!”

Lotus finished out the night with a quick two-song encore of “Travel” and “Shimmer and Out,” that ended with a pre-recorded track reminding everyone “to be careful in traffic”. We were then free to go. Despite the late hour at which I got home, I made one phone call. As my friend picked up the other line I quickly told him, “You were right, I do like vegetables.”

Photos by Earl Gardner