IAMX - The Loft -Atlanta, GA 2013

The band and crew may have felt waterlogged but you couldn't tell by the dynamo that was IAMX this night

of deluge.  The show at The Loft on May 4th in Atlanta, Georgia, was a darkly brilliant patch in the weekend - like a comet in a night sky. IAMX and Chris came in, warmed us with  his remarks, fueled us with their energy, recognized us in the watery essence, each and every drop of us together, in the unified field, and drove us onward in the search Chris shares in both authenticity and awareness. Chris was dripping wet from time to time - but his fire burned from all his accumulated history and blazed for those of us who care to look in the dark and then look inward.

Chris posted a photo of the drive from Atlanta in the rain - the same view going into Atlanta for the concert.
 Here's the link: http://iamx.eu/blog/?attachment_id=421

The show was up close and personal - steamy - that's how to categorize this electrifying concert.  Jeanine, Jeff and I slogged through heavy downpours to the Loft, located where Centre Stage is in Atlanta, arriving just in time to see the line of beautifully freakish people, so many dressed out for the grand occasion, despite the 4-5 inches of rain that fell on the area. As lead singer, musician, brains, Chris Corner said on twitter. "Oh lordy lordy...amazing southern crazies, blowing us away like that. What a bunch of gorgeous freaks. Love2uAtlantaCCX "

 We stood in the crowd near the stage for 2 1/2 hours to maintain our 2nd/3rd row from the stage position, all depending on who tried to move in front of us. The concert was worth every minute of the wait.

The stage was tight, I mean tight, no room for mistakes in movements as evidenced once by a roadie trying to fix one of Chris's electronics.  But the band managed to put on a vibrant and visually manic performance, utilizing every inch, belting out every song. The stage was also very dim, with a off and on spot so that

sometimes the stage was really dark.  It was lit from the back, don't know why there wasn't as much action from the front but IAMX played in such a way that you didn't care until you got home to look at any video you shot.
Lots of people with cameras at first, which was irritating, but they went away after two or three songs.
 IAMX played songs from the new album The Unified Field on this the Animal Impulses tour, but also fed the crowd's sentimental craving for older songs, including Kiss and Swallow,  Tear Garden, Nightlife and a few more, I was too absorbed in the moment to keep track.  I wish I could recall which ones, because there were a couple of dance remixes which were brilliant. Very different and more upbeat form the originals, one may have even been a ballad redesigned.  I have to say, Sorrow, was one of my faves from The Unified Field, with its sweet melancholia and vulnerability.  - as well as the title song. Tear Garden where Chris showed, a frail and intensely human side, even while his stage persona was present, his voice payed the price for earlier songs. The lyrics drifted out to us from a personal place, for a moment I felt like a voyeur, but couldn't look away or even feel guilty, because it was an invitation for us to examine our own frailty in this cosmic unpredictable comic of life. The rampant performer who later seemed too pent up for such a small stage revealed the Philosopher, one inclined to introspection and not afraid to show it.  I loved the paradox, which showed up in other songs too, which is one of the main reasons I was thrilled to be there.  His lyrics reveal so much about the human nature of a seeker who can't stop thinking, one ready to rip the veil off of every scam perpetrated by our societies, an indoctrination hard to escape unless one's ready to throw everything away. He's aware and he wants us to be aware too.
I Come With Knives was one of the stunners - Chris was in rare form, and the performance spellbinding. I was intrigued all night lone at how precise he could be in his movements on the drums, beating out the songs with the microphone faster and faster, yet still in such constant fluid motion, alarmingly erratic at times, frantically energized.
 It was like watching a Shaman, taken over by other elements, driven from within by an uncontrollable, but perfectly controlled essence.
To prove the point, Chris walked out onto the hands and shoulders of the audience and sang while holding onto the spotlight supports. Wow. And during the when, Chris came out wearing a black horse paper mache  horse mask, the Shaman was revealed. I view the horse as a symbol for spirit and have painted it in a number of my works - and a black horse, is the spirit of the subconscious breaking through and instructing us on our real path as opposed to the path enforced by societal standards.
 In voudou, when the voudou priests open themselves up to the gods, they become "ridden" by the gods.  They call it "riding the horse. So when Chris pushed the mask up and peered at us, his heavily mascara-emphasized eyes evident from beneath the horse face - it only enforced my conception of Chris as shaman - especially since he speaks for all of those believing in the call to wake up and realize that in the unified field we all have an equal chance to create our realty. What a perfect ending to a night filled with Tesla level electricity.
I took the show as a not-so-subliminal challenge to not only wake up, but to acknowledge. The night proved all the more  valuable because we went through the 2 1/2 hour dreadful drive and then the  2 1/2 hour standing initiation first, I imagine everyone in the room, from the band and road crew to the Loft staff, to the audience felt it - that effort to face the elements only to experience a confluence of elements of a different and alchemical nature.