MP3.com Live: Massively Attacked

In a Berkeley set, pioneering UK electronic outfit eschews the nuanced, dubby soul of its early years in favor of a darker, full-blown guitar assault.

BERKELEY, Calif.--Time stands still for no band--unless you're the Rolling Stones, of course.

The most daring musicians embrace change, choosing creative experimentation over tried-and-true formulas.

At the Massive Attack and DJ Shadow concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley Saturday night, fans got to see and hear two artists who fall into that camp, but with varying degrees of vigor.

Although his new album The Outsider is half-full of "hyphy" hip-hop, beatsmith DJ Shadow didn't play a single hyphy song in his one-hour set, mostly sticking to the atmospheric hip-hop on which he made his rep. It was an odd move for an artist making a stark change to his sound and performing in that new sound's birthplace.

But later in the evening, Massive Attack largely ignored the dub and soul of its early years in favor of the dark, moody sound of its recent work. In a live setting, with a full band, that guitar-driven sound left little room for songwriting nuance, focusing mostly on the build and release of the rhythm's sonic tension, often bordering on an almost industrial sound.

The results in both sets were solid performances that were not very memorable.

As a DJ, Shadow is among the best, be it technically, creatively, or as a tastemaker. For the first 30 minutes of his set, Shadow played his most cinematic breakbeats, starting with the familiar piano notes of "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt," one of the standout tracks on his acclaimed 1996 debut, Entroducing.

He played a host of his tracks from his work with James Lavelle's Unkle outfit, and then he brought out British vocalist Chris James, whose singing teetered somewhere between Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Blur's Damon Albarn on two decent tracks. Shadow also brought out longtime fellow Quannum collective member Lateef the Truth Speaker, an engaging if limited rapper whose solicitations forced the crowd to up its energy level.

Music took a backseat for the opening of Massive Attack's set. The stage setup featured three news crawler-type LCD screens, and before the band emerged, it scrolled a bevy of facts and figures about Berkeley, including latitude and longitude, 2004 election results, sister cities, and the name of its city manager (surely Phil Kalmarz appreciated the shout-out).

The band--two drummers, guitar, bass, keys, and effects, and frontman Robert del Naja on vocals and beat programming--emerged and quickly jumped into "False Flags," a dark, deliberate rocker with del Naja delivering his trademark half-spoken vocals. The track is a new song from the band's new greatest hits compilation, Collected.

There were no lights facing the band on the stage. Instead, a bank of color-changing lights stood at the back of the stage, turning band members into silhouettes throughout the night and focusing the visual attention on the screens.

Del Naja told the crowd that Daddy G (aka Grant Marshall), the other half of Massive Attack, was back in the UK to be with his wife, who had just given birth to a baby boy. It was unclear if the absence of Marshall, whose musical taste is known to lean heavily on dub and soul, was why the set veered away from that sound.

Even though he was the lone Massive Attacker in the house, del Naja took a backseat for portions of the night, letting guest vocalists like reggae star and longtime collaborator Horace Andy, former Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser, and newcomer Deborah Miller grab the limelight.

Andy in particular shined on tracks like "Hymn of the Big Wheel" and "Man Next Door," while Fraser delivered near-operatic vocals on songs like "Black Melt" and "Teardrop."

But more than anything, guitarist Angelo Bruschini, a studio musician who has played on two of Massive Attack's album, dominated the night, turning even the deeply soulful "Safe From Harm" into a bombastic guitar barrage. It seemed as though each song quickly moved through the verses and chorus before Bruschini propelled the song into a dark, ominous wall of axe-wielding madness.

For lovers of the band's recent ventures into creepy, almost metallic rock-tronica, it was a mesmerizing night. But for those more into the group's soulful sound on early albums like Blue Lines and Protection, it was a compelling show but a missed opportunity.

Change ain't for everybody.