Melvins 9/9 PDX

[blacksanta]

Just got back. Will post full review tomorrow. Y'all are in for a treat when this circus comes to town.

[Vcavallo]

hey great to hear.  thanks for the teaser and i look forward to your review.

[sheathforever]

yeah, this show was excellent. what was the song they opened with though? i couldn't place it. it was cool how much old merch they had. i got a sticker that was a promotional item for the release of 'stag'. weird. anyway, out of the roughly ten times i've seen them, it was one of the better ones. an order of magnitude better than on the recent tour with jello.

[FartLips]

what about the choice of shirts? please describe? any melvins army?

[closedeyevisuals]

what about the one kiss design that had j.simmons with the mickey mouse ears?

[The Fool]

Y'all are in for a treat when this circus comes to town.

i can't wait!!!
unfortunately it will be quite a while before the circus is anywhere near me though goddammit!

...and you think october's a long away vinnie!

[jhirte]

HOLY SHIT. last night ruled!

I've seen the Melvins 11 times now, Big Business 11 or 12 (I'd have to check) and last night was the best I've ever seen both bands. Add them together, and you get a ass kicking in the third degree!

They played a lot of new songs from what I could tell... I could be mistaken, but I havent heard Pigs of the.. in the long time.

Big Biz does about 20min or so, Melvins about 80/85 ending in Lovely Butterfly w/extended drum outro. And let me just say this: THE BIT with two drums is simply amazing. I can't wait for Seattle on Monday. and am very disapointed I missed Eugene (I'm getting over some cold/flu thing).

In closing, let me say, if you can only catch 1 show this year, this had better be it. If you can do a few shows, DO IT. callin sick to work, rob a liquor store to fund it, do whatever it takes!

[blacksanta]

First, the bad news. My dad forgot to bring the camera, so I have like 4 shitty pics on my buddy's camera phone.     

"Is there ANY REAL MELVINS FANS IN HERE?" the guy screamed while I was taking a piss. The walls were shaking from the barrage the Melvins were making. I turned my head around and croaked "This is my 10th show in 10 years." "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?" he screamed with excitement. "THIS FUCKING BIG BUSINESS/MELVINS MELD? I'M FROM OLYMPIA AND HAVE SEEN THEM A MILLION TIMES BUT THIS IS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE!" Indeed, I thought. The volume was so loud and the music so brutal my mind was quaking.

So I met my buddies in a parking lot across the street at about 8:30. I had been waiting for a half hour on 6th and Couch. No Melvins in the area behind the venue, but I got to watch a Puerto Rican beat the fuck out of a brother with a large crutch for not having monies owed. When they arrived I immediatley sized up the situation. No camera. A half-drank bottle of Chivas Regal. My degenerate father and two of my friends wacked out on shrooms. Hooray!

"I saw the Melvins at the Comet Tavern in 1991" said the dude up in the balcony. I was on my second vodka tonic. "They played with Tad, Dwarves and Mudhoney. Someone threw a 40 oz at the Dwarves' bass player and they walked off the stage. The guitarist jumped into the audience and started beating people with a mic stand. Then the Melvins came on and opened with 20 minutes of feedback. I'm gonna try and get them to cover 'Hand of Doom' tonight."

Iommi Stubbs is a Portland band that missed the stoner rock bandwagon by a couple of years when they finally called it quits. They were kind of like the Portland version of Karp. Really derivative of Melvins/Sabbath/early doom. They are far less 'indie' than Karp, as far as their sensibilities seem to lie. They would have done better headlining a smaller club instead of opening for Big Business and the Melvins, because the audience didn't seem to into them, which is a shame. They are JUST as heavy as Electric Wizard. During their set, I went and checked out the merch table. JESUS CHRIST. At least 15 different Melvins/BB/Altamont/Porn shirts. Altamont panties. Melvins tote bags. Melvins Nikes, Zippos, dolls, paperweights, books. An assload of CD's. Stag, Stoner Witch and Peace through Chemistry on vinyl. The HAT singles........I asked M. Moss if Porn was playing that evening. Seems that the Porn/Altamont/BB/Melvins show will happen a bit later in the tour. So fuck you all who get to see that and have a good time 

Big Business......how can two people make such a racket? This is the first time I've seen them, other than youtube shit. They were so loud it was hard to differentiate notes, melodies. It was like being sucked into a jet engine. Dale came out and played a few songs on guitar with 'em, and he pulled off a couple of great buttrock geetar solos that had the devil horns a-flyin.' Before you know it, Dale is playing in perfect tandem with Coady. Then Buzzo come out and they go into The Talking Horse.

What follows is 80 minutes of brutality. Sheer heaviosity. Humongous riffage. Buzz looking evil in his black satanic mumu. Every other heavy band is rendered obsolete. And drums DRUMS AND MORE DRUMS. There probably wasn't more than five minutes where there wasn't drums. A note about the double drum kit. It is two single kits melded into one. They are not seperated, Dale and Coady play right next to each other, in tandem. Perfect synchronicity. This brutal barrage gets spotlighted at the end of damn near every song.

The whole band appears happy as shit with the new lineup. They played 8 new songs including Talking Horse and A Civilized Worm. I haven't heard any other track off the new album.
W/O knowing some of the new songs it looked something like this:

Talking Horse
Civilized Worm
The Bloated Pope
New Song
New Song
Oven
New Song
New Song
Let it All Be
New Song
Set Me Straight/DCH
Sky Pup
New Song
Revolve
Hooch
The Bit
Lovely Butterfly
(One of the double drum solos sounded suspiciously like the second half of Cow)

Highlights for me include a great extended oven, The best version of Let it All Be I've ever heard, A vicious Bit, and a barnstormer version of Lovely Butterfly. Coady and Dale play the Butterfly beat after Buzz and Jared walk off stage for a couple of minutes. Then they wave, leave, no encore, nothing left to prove.

As we pulled into traffic we noticed we were behind a gold ford focus with MELVINS vanity plates. A familiar silhouette was visible on the passenger side. My buddy Jason hopped out and ran up to the window. When he came back her said, "He looks a lot different up close. He has an elf nose."

[ManWithNoName]

excellent review, santa

[FartLips]

i think i just creamed my jeans. the anticipation is like seeing them for the first time.

[Vcavallo]

me too.  gotta change my drawers.

thanks a lot santa.  really, that was awesome.  (he does have an elf nose)
i covered my mouth with my hand at one point in your review and whispered, "oh my god....".  i am very excited.  the next thought was, i hope they don't die on the way to vermont.

[rimb]

Great review, blacksanta!

[bUTTHOLEmAN]

Great review, blacksanta!

Great review black santa, I pray your wiener grows exponentialllly!

[Rev. Mike]

This review looks familiar.

[mopafeena]

Great review as always santa.

Makes me hope even more (if it's possible) that they decide to come back to Australia soon.