Sleep
London Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Psychonautical grooves from the stonerrock overlords.
They’re handing out ear buds at the bar, such are the anticipated levels of volume tonight.
But these foam plugs work equally well stuck up your nose to prevent a contact high from the dope smoke drifting up from the floor.
Sleep may or may not have been the first stoner-rock band, but they’re easily the greatest.
The reunited San Jose trio’s legend is built on their hymnals to altered consciousness, slo-mo eruptions with the weight and agility of tectonic plates.
The Empire was temporarily closed a couple of years ago due to fears over structural safety. Here, the monolithic power of Marijuanaut’s Theme and Holy Mountain alone should give the local health and safety representatives the jitters once more.
There’s nothing in the way of banter from bassist/ vocalist Al Cisneros, thankfully. But guitarist Matt
Pike – stripped to the waist and looking like a side of well-fed beef covered in cave-painting tattoos – provides a weirdly charismatic focal point, a blur of hair, sweat, gut and ink.
They finish with their two most enduring songs, alternative universe hit single Dragonaut and a truncated version of the epic Dopesmoker, the sludge-metal Stairway To Heaven. Then, without fuss, they’re gone, the ring of noise in our ears, the stench of weed in our nostrils. As it was, as it should be.