Geordie Greep Blows the Roof Off The Wiltern in LA
On a heady, electric night in Los Angeles, The Wiltern became ground zero for one of the most adventurous and unclassifiable live shows the city’s seen in ages. Geordie Greep — the mercurial frontman of experimental rock band Black Midi — stepped into the spotlight with his solo project, delivering a performance that felt less like a conventional concert and more like a fevered sonic ritual.
Touring behind his debut solo album The New Sound, Greep brought an experimental rock showcase laced with jazz, psych, and avant-garde tendencies that both baffled and mesmerized a sold-out room of devotees and curious newcomers alike.
The evening kicked off with a bold, disorienting move: a ten-minute percussion overture. As the house lights dimmed, a lone drummer took the stage, joined gradually by a percussionist on bongos. What followed was a hypnotic, unrelenting drumscape — primal, chaotic, and impossible to look away from. By the time the full band emerged, riding the crest of that percussive wave straight into “Walk Up”, the crowd was already in a trance.
On record, The New Sound is a dense, surreal listen — but live, it crackles with an entirely different kind of chaotic energy. Greep, clad in a loosely buttoned shirt and radiating mad-scientist charisma, led his band through a setlist heavy on album tracks, bending and reshaping them into sprawling, often unpredictable jams.
Psychedelic guitar runs melted into dizzying jazz breakdowns, with saxophone flourishes and polyrhythmic drumming that owed as much to Sun Ra and Charles Mingus as it did to King Crimson and Captain Beefheart. The band’s technical ability was staggering, with each member taking turns at extended solos that sent the crowd into frenzied applause.
Standout moments included a blistering run through “Terra”, where the band stretched its proggy backbone into a kaleidoscopic epic, and the closing number “The Magician,” a sprawling piece of psych-jazz fusion that built to a cathartic, euphoric crescendo.
What makes a Geordie Greep show so riveting is its total unpredictability. Songs rarely stayed in their recorded form for long — instead, they became launching pads for wild improvisation and instrumental conversation. Greep himself delivered vocals like incantations, warping between spoken-word mutterings, yelps, and soulful crooning, his singular voice as much a texture in the mix as any instrument.
The band surrounding him was impeccable. Each player moved fluidly between jazz, rock, and avant-garde styles, locking into grooves only to gleefully shatter them seconds later. The Wiltern crowd, a mix of Black Midi disciples and avant-rock explorers, was fully along for the ride — heads nodding, bodies moving, shouts of approval cutting through the heady mix.
At a time when so much live music feels overly polished or neatly categorized, Geordie Greep’s show was a necessary jolt to the system — a reminder of how thrilling it can be when an artist pushes beyond genre and structure to create something utterly alive in the moment.
The New Sound is an incredible record, but on this night at The Wiltern, it became something even greater: a communal, immersive, and unpredictable experience. He’s currently on tour, and if he visits a city anywhere near you, it’s truly an unmissable show!
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