.

Who: The Bloody Beetroots
What: Italian electro-DJ madness
Where: Phoenix Concert Theatre, 410 Sherbourne St.
Price: $31.50
Bonus: Venom masks with eyes that light up!

Here’s the official music video for The Bloody Beetroots’ “Spank,” which was just released a couple of weeks ago:

.
That sums up their sound pretty accurately. (I may be dancing to it again as I write this.)

Mink and I get to The Phoenix as The Beetroots are already in full swing, since they always seem to start earlier than anticipated. Longtime readers of this blog (hi mom and dad!) may recall that Mink and I saw The Bloody Beetroots in Vienna in November 2010, and I lost my purse into the gaping maw of the ravenous crowd for a few horrible minutes. You can read that review for the gripping story.

On Friday night, it’s my first time seeing a concert at The Phoenix. The stage is high but intimate, the walls are close, and the floor is strewn with bottles and other debris, as well as many 20-somethings in neon shirts with no sleeves. Make no mistake, we are deep in raver kid territory. They tend to be loud and sweaty and largely oblivious to those around them, but they will grin at you if you grin at them.

The Bloody Beetroots is the stage name of Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo – and why does one require a pseudonym at all with a name like that, you’d assume? For the live show, it’s three guys on stage wearing Venom masks and wailing away on drums, synths, a grand piano, and a guitar. As a fancy take on the masks, the eyes now light up in tandem with the beats.

.

That show in Vienna almost three years ago produced a seething mass of riotous energy, both on stage and in the crowd, and this Friday night is no different. The lead Beetroot, Rifo, is clad in tight black pants and a black leather jacket. He moves fluidly from the piano bench to the front of the stage with his guitar, as THE BLOODY BEETROOTS flashes in fancy white script behind him to the beat of the drums. He stalks across the stage, a commanding, almost intimidating presence, and sprays a mouthful of water onto the crowd. The lithe girls writhing on top of broad, bared shoulders stretch their arms upward, close their eyes, lift their faces beatifically to receive the spray as it catches in the light.

The three figures on stage slam manically from song to song, slicing up the measures and suturing them back together as seamlessly as practised tailors. At the end of the set they exit to a tumult of cheers, only to return for a half-hour encore that features “Warp 7.7” and an even more cranked-up version of “Spank.”

When it’s over, The Beetroots leave the stage quickly, the house lights go up, and we are urged to get the hell out of The Phoenix. We blink too much and mill about aimlessly for those empty, echoing minutes that inevitably follow a concert, left wondering how such an atmosphere, with so much energy whirling about the room, always dissipates so quickly – as if it never happened at all.