Osees perform at the Chapel in San Francisco on Sept. 5, 2022. Karen Goldman/STAFF.

SAN FRANCISCO — While a sold-out Chapel watched his band set up their equipment onstage, Osees frontman John Dwyer apologized to the audience. The band had been delayed on their drive north from L.A. because of Labor Day traffic. “We promise we’ll play extra long,” Dwyer announced as the band began to soundcheck.

True to his word, Osees kicked off their three-night residency in San Francisco on Monday with a marathon two-hour-plus set that melted faces and confirmed the band has lost none of its intensity during the pandemic. The quintet offered up everything from stripped-down punk off their latest album, A Foul Form; psychedelic prog rock from 2018’s Smote Reverser, and noisy garage rock from earlier albums that came several name changes ago.

After a short soundcheck rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive,” the crowd went nuts upon hearing the opening chords of “I Come From the Mountain,” from 2013 album A Floating Coffin. Soon, a massive pit opened in the center of the floor and persisted in its swirling chaos for all but the most sedate of the set’s musical moments. Anytime anyone fell down, they were immediately helped to their feet and shoved back into the melee.

Dwyer has added a number of new guitar hero poses to his arsenal. In addition to his “army man with guitar” stance, where he thrusts the guitar forward from his shoulder like a rifle and his sweat-and-saliva-propelling head banging, he now has a new move where he stalks the microphone while hiding his face behind the guitar’s body. At one point, he held the guitar against his chest with his chin while putting his hand behind his back and extending his middle finger.

Osees perform at the Chapel in San Francisco on Sept. 5, 2022.

Dwyer and company stretched out during extensive jams on several songs. “The Dream,” off 2011’s Carrion Crawler/The Dream, got its usual space-out and subsequent rave-up, before segueing into “The Daily Heavy” from 2019’s Facestabber. The band finished its marathon set with a 12-minute rendition of “C,” off Smote Reverser, which brought the chugging groove from hushed tones to explosive guitar pyrotechnics.

Bassist Tim Hellman was served cookies by his bandmates in celebration of his birthday.

The sci-fi punk of “Terminal Jape” and “Scramble Suit,” from 2020 album Protean Threat, blasted the audience with punctuated white noise and static. The syncopated chaos of “Funeral Solution,” from 2022’s A Foul Form, provoked a new level of frenzy in the mosh pit. As the band’s set continued past midnight, each song seemed like it had to be the last. And yet, after each one Dwyer would tune up his guitar and make eye contact with drummers Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon to see if they had another song in them.

“Well, this turned out OK, didn’t it?” Dyer asked attendees, who were now drenched in sweat, about two-thirds of the way through.

Automatic performs at the Chapel in San Francisco on Sept. 5, 2022.

L.A. trio Automatic struggled through some technical difficulties before turning in a synth-heavy performance of tunes anchored by drummer Lola Dompé, daughter of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets drummer Kevin Haskins. The set featured “New Beginnings,” from its 2022 album, Excess, as well as “Strange Conversations,” from 2019’s Signal.

The evening began with Dwyer’s Castle Face records labelmates Bronze turning in a mysterious and chaotic set. The trio consisted of drummer Brian Hock, singer Rob Spector and Miles Friction, who played a weird cube-shaped gizmo covered with dials, from which he could coax any number of strange electronic sounds by unknown means.

Follow photographer Karen Goldman at Twitter.com/Xposure120 and Instagram.com/XposureArts.