Live Review: Public Assembly
February 19, 2009
By: Sam Houghton

Rating: 7/11

Mirror, Mirror is the type of band that leaves a person thinking, “Wow, my dreams are getting weird. Perhaps I should slow down on the cough syrup.” Then it hits that the images swimming around your brain weren’t induced by liquids or a pill or wild vegetations from the Mulu Jungles. It wasn’t a dream at all but an event in the middle of Williamsburg with other straight-laced Brooklynites. It was an act by Mirror, Mirror, a band whose influence stretches out to Star Trek and back to the realms of Pink Floyd and The Velvet Underground. And by god, you had a good time.

A Mirror, Mirror set is best described as a blend of 70s and 80s rock opera with a Stanley Kubrick film, mixed with that scene from the “The Big Lebowski” where the Dude’s landlord, dressed in a leotard, prances around a stage to Wagner’s “Sigfried.” 

Mirror, Mirror, the name taken from a Star Trek episode where Kurt and company find themselves transported to a parallel universe, is a strange act. The three musicians came out on stage dressed heel to nose in black spandex suits with some sort of white drape falling over their shoulders and heads. At one point, guitarist Ryan Lucero put his guitar in a power chord drone and walked off stage, only to reappear moments later dressed in a deformed mask and Yoko Ono hair falling down his back. The band commanded a certain presence that stopped the audiences’ chitchat and made them goggle and smile curiously. Most of the show consisted of drummer Matt Bagdanoff thundering away on his drums while Lucero strummed his guitar and David Riley sang, sometimes hanging upside down off the stage, other times in the lap of an innocent fan. Usually the two front men would slowly contort and stretch their limbs in erratic directions; a high school gym class on heavy psychedelics.

Their new age electronic sound reminds one of Pink Floyd. Riley sang in a high, almost falsetto voice that was somehow soothing, similar to that of David Gilmore. Contrary to the Floyd, Mirror, Mirror had a grungy sound and image reminiscent of The Velvet Underground. But they were also quite strange, turning things like a Nintendo DI into an instrument. However, despite the strangeness, the band could put sounds together well, proven by the definite flow and fullness of the set. Their best song was “New Horizons,” a slow grooving song with a spacey keys track and some acoustic finger picking combined with excellent, cooing vocals.

Many people cant handle strangeness like Mirror, Mirror. They get agitated and, given the chance, would much rather drink protein shakes and talk about Jagerbombs. But for those with some grit left, I’d suggest leaving your work shoes at the door and letting yourself wallow in the weird world of Mirror, Mirror.