Matt Matasci June 26th, 2018 - 12:47 AM
Baroness drummer Sebastian Thomson unfortunately had to head home during the band’s tour due to a family emergency, leaving them percussion-less for a date at Hellfest 2018 in France. Ever the professionals, the sludge-metal act opted to give festival fans a little something extra with their set, even if they were down a member. Instead of finding a fill-in or cancelling their set, the Georgia band transformed into an acoustic act for one night, performing as a trio.
— Baroness (@YourBaroness) June 23, 2018
The band’s ability to evolve and transform on the go is unsurprising. They recently welcomed a new guitarist to the fold after amicably departing with longtime guitarist Pete Adams. The new guitarist, Gina Gleason joined the band almost exactly a year ago.
Luckily for fans around the world, some of the performance was recorded. The full set list has not yet been published, but keep an eye here for updates. The band also has reportedly recorded most of the music for a new album, which would be the first since their jaw-dropping 2015 comeback album Purple.
Here is the “Green Theme” from the band’s double album Yellow & Green.
In this video below, singer John Baizley explains that the band had to select from across their discography to find songs that fit the medium of an acoustic trio (with Baizley and Gleason on guitars and Nick Jost on keyboards). Baizley preludes the song by talking about the writing of Purple, which followed a traumatic bus crash — at this point Baisley is the only Baroness member that was in the accident.
Baizley talks about how after that accident, which left him “broken and dying on the side of the road” on what was “probably the worst day of [his] life,” he finally felt like he could write a love song. Unlike a typical love song, “If I Had To Wake Up (Would You Stop The Rain)” is to his friends, family and fans that supported him after the crash. Here it acoustically below:
