Veteran rock outfit Wooden Shjips found themselves at Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, NY on Wednesday night for just the third performance on their 2019 spring world tour. The psychedelic noise-rock band continues to promote the new material featured on their latest release, 2018’s V. 

At times, the band’s 90-minute headlining performance felt like an onslaught of high-powered audio with decibel levels reaching the max amount that the Williamsburg venue could allow. Even with earplugs, the level of “noise rock” which the four members relentlessly pumped out of the P.A. felt, at times, like sticking one’s head inside of a jet engine. Regardless of the show’s dangerously fun audio levels, the performance was everything a fan would want from the San Francisco rock band.

Guitarist Erik “Ripley” Johnson wielded his powerful guitar rig the same way one might control an unlimited supply of electricity, sending shockwaves (metaphorical, thank goodness) throughout the audience every time he stepped on his overdrive/fuzz pedal. Johnson led the band in powering through tracks from V., in addition to other tunes from their catalog.

While attendees managed to keep their footing against the power of the performance, the band took the experience even further into overdrive with the maybe the best use of projections seen by any band at “The Bowl” so far in 2019. The differently shaped light projections seemed to fill the entire venue with kaleidoscope-like images coming and going, circulating and exploding, completely encompassing the audience’s entire perspective. There were times when the levels of audio and visual stimulation seemed almost too much for the human body to handle, making for the perfect excuse to go refill one’s beer to allow the senses to re-calibrate, even if just for a few minutes.

Their performance on Wednesday once again proved that Wooden Shjips still has the collective power to outplay any claim that psych-rock is a thing of the past.

The band will head to Europe for the next stop on their 2019 spring tour with a performance at Tomavistas in Barcelona, Spain on Friday, May 24th. Fans can head to the band’s website for upcoming tour info and tickets.

Scroll down for photos from Wednesday’s performance, courtesy of Tom Coyote.