If you listen to modern psychedelic music in any capacity, you must have at least heard the name INFECTED MUSHROOM by now. This psytrance DJ duo from Israel has been around since 1996 and have become a staple in the psychedelic music scene and are no strangers to playing in Finland; it seems like their tours bring them through Europe with reasonable regularity, so we were very excited to see them show up on the spring roster for Vanha Ylioppilastalo in Helsinki on April 14th, 2023, so we could finally check them out in a live capacity. This DJ set was accompanied by a few other artists, with the headliners starting at the distressing hour of 00:30 in the morning for us old folks, but we nevertheless made it work!
Personally, I discovered INFECTED MUSHROOM a few years ago and they were my gateway into psychedelic music, starting with the “Heavyweight” album, which I discovered surely at least a decade after its release. The act has played here since my discovery of them a few times, but this was, as mentioned, my first time being able to align the stars to go see them! It was surely going to be interesting to see what sort of stage production they would bring, as their last band set in Helsinki made for some nice photos.
Since it was a chilly evening, we showed up plenty early for the show to make sure we didn’t have to tackle a nasty queue. Since there were no gaps between bands (can you tell I’m used to heavy metal gigs?), this meant that we got to see most of Turbulence‘s set, which we very much enjoyed. It had a good, heavy low end and a lot of catchy bits to make us want to dance. We’ll definitely have to give them a spin sometime as he did a very nice job of warming us up!
True to form, the stage setup was fantastic. There were huge neon mandalas and bony coral-like flames, as well as a rather good resolution screen at the back of the stage, playing all sorts of psychedelic images, from mushrooms to octopuses and aliens. If there was one complaint, it was that the lights on the artwork weren’t as vivid as they could have been, to really make the decorations pop.
The band has a pretty expansive discography with nothing specifically “new” released recently beyond some remixes, though they did celebrate the anniversary of “Converting Vegetarians“ on April 9th. This meant that the setlist was sure to be a mixed bag of treasures, waiting for us to sample. Much to our delight then, “Deeply Disturbed” from the aforementioned anniversary album was the first up on the set. And if we thought Turbulence‘s bass was good, INFECTED MUSHROOM showed us that we hadn’t seen anything yet as it thumped out, loud and heavy.
The next immediately recognizable song was “Saeed,” which has been stuck in my head since local act TRUE CULT CLUB covered it some years ago. Of course, the live mix is bound to be a bit different, so every song, familiar or not, was a totally new experience. And if I’ve been complaining about the metal crowds this year, admittedly the trance scene hasn’t let me down. Though I’m sure the dancing was nothing close to what these guys are used to…at least this crowd wasn’t standing still at any point, had their hands up, and were generally dancing quite a lot more than I’m used to seeing here.
It was personally to my benefit that the background mostly had the band name in drippy gold, so I wasn’t missing out any time I went into “the zone” and closed my eyes and just got into the music. The whole show was fully sold out and not being much of a crowd person, we stuck to the back. It was hard to see the stage, but it seemed like the two of them were interacting with one another constantly, though it was impossible to say if it was in the context of having fun or passing on information to one another. From the set, we also caught “Ani Mevushal,” as well as a few other big treats, like “Becoming Insane,” “Groove Attack,” “Gravity Waves,” and at the end of their set, they played “Heavyweight” with a medley addition of “Converting Vegetarians” mixed into it.
Overall, this was an absolute blast and it was really nice to get out of the house and see some music beyond just the same ol’ metal bands I always see. Spring is a good time to start getting out and trying new things, with this being the first time hopping out of the genre in about 2 months. If you like INFECTED MUSHROOM at all, you should definitely check them out live, for they’ll surely shake things up and play some great music at the same time!
Written by Bear Wiseman
Setlist
- Deeply Disturbed
- Saeed
- Ani Mevushal
- Becoming Insane
- Groove Attack
- Gravity Waves (Xerox & Freeman cover)
- Heavyweight/Converting Vegetarians
- Cities of the Future
- Only Solutions
- Suliman
- Return to the Sauce
