A set will make any speaker setup sound incredible. Focusing on distorted midrange bass, his songs cut through space like a fuzzy saw pushing the speakers to a comfortable max without fear of challenging the bottom end or piercing the eardrums. True to form, his packed show at the Tuesday night sounded amazing, but the low ceiling made pairing the essential addition of his absurd visuals with the music logistically difficult.
While Tobacco employs a talk box for live vocals and has a keyboard accompanist, the majority of his time is spent twisting knobs on a mixer and commanding pre-recorded wavs on his Mac. To remedy this lack of a stage show, he has amassed an awesome array of footage ranging from pterodactyl porn (men dressed as winged dinosaurs engaging in sexual acts with human females) to grandmas eating frozen custard. Unfortunately, only a select few got to see the entire reel while the majority of the audience only caught glimpses of glitchy wrestling footage and looping jazzercise.
None of this is to say that the show was a waste. The sonic element alone had heads nodding and bodies moving. But, without a clear glimpse of the screen, the experience treaded dangerously close to hitting play on a Tobacco mix CD — through great speakers, of course.
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Paul Custer is a Denver-based writer and regular contributor to Reverb.
