Soaring, Distorted Enchantment: An Evening with Baroness

Photography by Colin LaVaute

In 2009, I worked security for The Blue Note, Columbia’s famed music venue. It was while I was employed there that I saw Baroness for the first time. They were apart of a stacked bill featuring Between the Buried and Me, Valiant Thorr, and atop the bill were alt-metal masters Mastodon. Being a huge fan of Mastodon, I requested to work in the barricades right in front of the stage. While I had heard of Baroness, I wasn’t prepared for the fandom they would instill in me as a result of their performance that night. From the first song, I was hooked. 

What was truly notable about that night was the fact that Mastodon came out as a three-piece when they hit the stage. Guitarist Bill Kelliher had become ill. While the band could tear through older songs from their catalog, they would have been hamstrung when attempting to play their recent concept album Crack the Skye in its entirety without a second guitarist. That is when frontman John Dyer Baizley and then guitarist Peter Adams of Baroness stepped in to fill Bill’s shoes. What transpired was an unforgettable night of rock n’ roll splendor that this writer will easily notch as one of his top five Blue Note experiences of all time. 

This past week, Baroness returned to Missouri once more. This time at the famed Blueberry Hill on the Loop in St. Louis. Sitting on the band’s tour bus, only hours before the show, I sat down with John Baizley to reflect on their first tour back since the pandemic. The tour, aptly titled the Your Baroness Tour, was unique in that it allowed ticket holders at each show to vote on their favorite songs. The ten songs with the most votes would kick off a career-spanning evening featuring no openers and nearly three hours of visceral, sludgy, prog-metal beauty. 

“We've tried to find those access and entry points for our audience and try to bring them in so that the sense of authorship over a performance is not just the four people on stage who have microphones in front of them and are the loudest things in the room,” Baizley states with an air of the same steely-eyed intensity he exudes while on stage. 

Baroness feels especially thankful to be back on the road. The band was unable to tour in support of their 2019 album Gold & Grey until they launched the first leg of the Your Baroness Tour in late 2021. Baizley continues, “We've all gone through this horrible, difficult, challenging couple of years. Now, I know I've got something in common with everybody in front of me. I know that we've all felt that disillusionment, that pain, that angst, anxiety, and that frustration, and a music venue is where I go to worship. It's where I go to supplicate myself in front of something that's bigger than me. It's where I go to celebrate. It's where I go to exorcise my demons. Everything for me happens inside those rooms. So yeah, I need it.”

The catharsis inherent with the return of live music to the cozy space known as The Duck Room, nestled in the basement of Blueberry Hill, was evident for both band and audience alike as Baroness took the stage later that night. The crowd-selected ten songs that opened their first set were full of the act’s staple songs from across their career. Perhaps at no moment in the night was I filled with more elation than when the band tore into Shock Me, the razor-sharp cut from their 2015 effort Purple. I hadn’t seen the band since well before the album’s release, but the performance of this favorite took me to a transcendental space. By the reaction from the rest of the crowd huddled in this intimate setting, I wasn’t alone. 

The performance was something of a homecoming for bassist and St. Louis native Nick Jost. It was plain to see and hear the hometown pride found in his return from his friendly jeering of certain members of the crowd. Another St. Louis musician made a guest appearance, as well. Violinist Katie Jones, who introduced Jost to Baizley, stepped on stage to play fiddle alongside John and guitarist Gina Gleason for an acoustic set. To hear that Baroness even played some songs acoustically might come as a surprise to a passive fan. Hearing Baizley tell it, at the core of the band’s material, you’ll find the fingerprints of roots and Americana music.

“It's country music underneath it. Most people don't want to admit that or they don’t want to hear it. But it's pretty out there,” said Baizley. Call it what you want, the acoustic interlude and Jones’ violin accompaniment were glorious. Before long, the band continued to rip through their set full of angular guitar work with intensity and ease. Even diving deep into their catalog to play such old-school bangers as Isak from The Red Album. Drummer Sebastion Thomson was just as much of a showman as his three bandmates from behind his drum set. His energy was so intense at times it seemed as though his body might jettison itself from his drum throne and shoot through the ceiling. 

Each member of Baroness is exemplary in their own musical right. As a unit, they seamlessly worked together to weave a tapestry of soaring, distorted enchantment. Perhaps Baizley describes the band’s chemistry best. “As a four-piece, we are playing music with one another, we listen to the subtle cues that are moving through our music in those really intangible ways that only the chemistry of a very tight-knit band can do.”

As soon as their last song had been played, the band dispersed into the crowd. Giving hugs, taking pictures, and signing vinyls. Each member makes every effort to show their appreciation to those who shared this visceral experience with them. Your Baroness, indeed.