The rain was vertical and incessant. It might have been raining like this for a thousand years and could continue for the next thousand, it seemed so permanent. The huge brick monster sat in the gloom with all its associated outbuildings and annexes nearby like an enormous square brontosaurus surrounded by her calves. Silent and unmoving, sitting there no doubt for a couple of centuries, surveying its surroundings with the hoplessness of someone who knows he's lost everything and whose only future lies in memories.
Going inside the main building for the first time was like walking into an alien cathedral dreamed up by a half-mad Giger with no sense of perspective. The walls were so big, you could imagine the architect of Babel had a part in their design. They were so old and black, they seemed to have taken on a life of their own, absorbing whatever and whoever had worked in here in the past, and developing a filthy purple skin, dripping with the toil and sweat of decades. Discovering later that this massive edifice had been built as a slaughterhouse justified every dark thought fighting to make itself known - the very walls of this place had become the aftermath of the fear and screams of thousands, perhaps millions, of creatures who had been coerced here to be bled of the bewildered, shortened life they once had.
If you'd leaned against these walls, you'd have been sucked inside to become part of the bones and gristle keeping this incredible monument standing.
The ceiling was a different thing altogether. A massive, darkened labryinth of Giger-esque tubes and conduits, once used to supply fresh air or heat to the butchers below, now serving only as a never-ending series of tunnels to carry the ghosts of the victims of this place round and round for ever. The ceiling was so high, clouds wouldn't have seemed out of place scudding underneath it, competing with the grey outside, dropping its never ending drizzle on to the sticky brick floor below.
Two enormous jet black curtains, draped either side of the stage at one end of this colossus, seemed to have once hidden some massive icon to the Ultimate Vampire. They must have weighed a couple of tons each and been there since the dawn of man.
Any ghosts that had been left perplexed and lost in this place for the last hundred years or so would have ran outside into the gloom screaming their fucking heads off in fear and panic as Melvins started Hung Bunny that night. This place was so perfect for a Melvins concert, it would have taken several imaginative writers and a cartload of drugs to have dreamed up a more suitable auditorium. It was the Gormenghast of Melvins venues.
Just when you'd thought things couldn't get any better, and the only hope for something as grand in the future would be to live your life all over again and wait for exactly the same moment to make itself known once more - it did get better. Mr. and Mrs. TheCrybaby and Mr. and Mrs. PriMarius showed up and justified why there is hope for humankind after all.
Tonight was awesome on so many levels. And I got to eat home-baked cake and rice milk for breakfast the following morning with the coolest Croatians ever.
Set list: exactly as before but COMPLETELY different in this place.
Box Sets: Black only - 150 euros
Hot pancakes and cold beer: served for ever
Conspicuous by his absence: Rokko.
Come to Vienna. Come to Arena. Watch something dark. 10/10.
That was a well written review indeed. Now im convinced Melvins should be the very first band to play from the centre of a black hole.
A+mazing review.
(http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee392/robotsindetroit/cnLqeGGdEqe1dxl1ulL2Cg1so1_500.jpg)
I concur about the black hole thing, too. What an idea!
That's exactly what's behind that ceiling.
Quote from: jules on October 12, 2011, 06:20:13 PM
That's exactly what's behind that ceiling.
bananas.
looks like this has been the best show you have seen til now
Have the shows on this tour been selling out?
Quote from: missy on October 13, 2011, 10:18:39 PM
Have the shows on this tour been selling out?
I know some have. When I arrived at Vienna at 7pm there were around 200 tix left out of 1000, but loads of people were buying them as they arrived.
The Bristol, Feyzin and Oslo are for sure.
Thanks, Jules. Do you have any suggestions on where to purchase tickets for Malmo@Debaser & Bremen@Kulturzentrum Lagerhaus?
Quote from: missy on October 13, 2011, 11:34:08 PM
Thanks, Jules. Do you have any suggestions on where to purchase tickets for Malmo@Debaser & Bremen@Kulturzentrum Lagerhaus?
Got my Malmo tix from the Debaser site here:
http://www.debaser.se/kalender/6386/ (http://www.debaser.se/kalender/6386/)
For Bremen try this:
http://venyoo.de/Bremen/s19798-the-melvins#10383565 (http://venyoo.de/Bremen/s19798-the-melvins#10383565)
Sweet, thanks.
love your "buzz in the dark" avatar
Thanks, I took that "Buzz in the dark" pic in San Antoino, TX a few years back.
QuoteHi!
I was at the Melvins concert in Vienna (10/10/11) and took some pictures for the VICE magazine
Have a look at my concert blog:
http://blog.matthiashombauer.com/melvins/ (http://blog.matthiashombauer.com/melvins/)
greetings
Matthias
Holy, wow! Fantastic photos!!!!!!!!
Thanks for posting those, Brian.