Photo by rockographer.com (full gallery)

I denied the Super Furry Animals for too long. How could a band with such a silly sounding name also craft such great pop songs? The last opportunity I had to see the Welshmen live was when a friend's band was opening for them in 2000. The friend ended up breaking down and not making it, and consequently, neither did I.

Fast forward eight years, and having heard nothing but amazing things about their live show, I have been doing my best to wade through their back catalog while also trying to keep up with the new output. It's a formidable assignment, considering their eights LPs, more if you include solo and side projects, so you'll forgive me if I still don't have song titles committed to memory. What I do have is the live experience—finally!—and the revelation that this band is a must for any live music fan.

So for this mini tour to celebrate the U.S. release of their eighth album, "Hey Venus!", we braved that long walk from the PATH train down to Maxwell's, stopping only for some wining and dining with our Jersey friends. If we had any intention of seeing openers Holy Fuck we blew it. After a brief stop at the bar, frontman Gruff Rhys appeared onstage to much hootin' and hollerin' (perhaps the crowd liked his cute pom-pom hat).

The band started with a medley of upbeat rockers like "The Gateway Song," "Golden Retriever," "Ice Hockey Hair," and "Do Or Die." With a big, fuzzed-out guitar tone and Gruff's shimmering vocal delivery, I wondered if the rest of the set would be as sublime. As a few members swapped laptop, keyboard and guitar duties, they went on to capture their more spacey, mellow recordings like "Zoom!" and "The Gift That Keeps Giving." There was some difficulty with the talkbox for "Juxtaposed With You," but they moved into the built-in encore of "Rings Around the World" and "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" (among others) while Gruff rocked a giant space/motocross helmet. I've already got my tickets for Bowery Ballroom in February. –Carl Gambrell

The Brooklyn Masonic Temple, in Ft. Greene, was built in 1909 and has hosted a number of fraternal organizations over the years, as well as various weddings, meetings and birthday parties.

But for (probably) the first time, the Temple hosted a full-on metal show last night, featuring scene vets Neurosis, Southern upstarts Mastodon and the relatively unknowns U.S. Christmas.

Is this the next great, off-beat venue in NYC, a la The United Palace and Warsaw? The Temple, which is fairly bare bones in its layout, has room for about 1000 people, with a large, unobstructed floor and a seated balcony. Beer ($5 for 16 oz. of Bud or Sierra Nevada) was handled by a ticket system, and lines were few...except for the men's room, which had up to 40 people in line at points (favorite moment: one of the few women at the show walking by the line, laughing and pointing, then sauntering into the gigantic—and empty—women's bathroom).

As for the sound...that's a work in progress. US Christmas, which featured a surprisingly large number of grey-haired pony-tailed types, actually hit the right balance between Sabbath-y metal thunder and atmospheric layering (thanks to a whole lotta theremin use). They also elicited the only real laugh of the night, albeit unintentionally.

Me to girlfriend: "Which one would you do, if you had to?"

Girl: (Pointing to antlers on the frontman's mic stand) "The singer, because he's obviously 'horny.' Thanks, I'll be here all week!"

Mastodon, the night's headliner in all but name, struggled a bit to work through the sludgy mix; it was sufficiently brutal, if a bit same-y after an hour (props to the security, however, for allowing a decent amount of moshing and not being, as one patron eloquently put it, "dicks"). Neurosis, always one of the more progressive bands in the scene, used their keyboards, a large video screen and bass line that could be charitably termed "oppressive" to create a true stoner vibe...as evidenced by the skunkweed smell that immediately wafted in during the band's first note.

Mastodon and Neurosis play the Brooklyn Mason Temple (photo gallery) [Metromix New York]