Bo Ningen

Hyde Park, London

4/5

IF THE energy-makers Bo Ningen had been the headliners and in control of the main stage at the BST festival instead of a pile of freshly washed droneheads, Hyde Park would have ended up with the crowd totally danced-out and knackered, high on the ecstatic devastation that ought to have been unleashed.

As it was the crowd was highly charged after a cool and true-to-form performance by Motorhead and at boiling point during what was a beautifully melancholic performance by Black Sabbath.

But it was in the smaller venues around the brilliantly designed arena that the most uncontrollable and truly wild noise was to be found.

Tucked away in the Village Hall, Japanese acid-rockers Bo Ningen unleashed a brilliant, ear-ringing set full of sublime hallucinogenic riffs and eccentric time shifts amid wave after wave of flaming lighting effects, wild-men antics and retro derivatives taken from all that is worth taking from really heavy psychedelia.

Check them out.

n Bo Ningen play at The Dome in Tufnell Park, London, on August 31, details: www.dometufnellpark.co.uk.

Peter Lindley