Melvins at ATP and the Scala, London: December 8th, 9th and 11th [1]

[norecess]

3X MELVINS IN 4 DAYS

You want a review. Here comes on. Understand me well, I have no idea where to start, and this review is most likely going to be a long one. In short, I have seen the Melvins playing three times in four days. Yes, think abou that again. I've had an incredibly quality time with klump and Lunica, but also with MacBastard, and just simply had one of the best days of my life. The show they played yesterday was even better than I could have hoped for. The sound was incredibly good, every song was the best performance I have ever heard (and I have quite some bootlegs from all different era's) by them, and I was fully concentrated on the circus on stage every second of it.

My mind is thinking is thinking faster than my fingers can type, but it was just fucking incredible, everything. There's not going to be a line in this story I think, but, I just have to get this on 'paper', even though how much I'd like to 'remember things my own way, not necessarily the way they happened'. I've had 4 hours of sleeps average each night, emptied about 15 bottles of red wine with my friend Jochem and klump and Lunica, didn't eat very well, and saw the greatest show I could hope for. It's just simply incredible, even more now that I try to remember everything.

So, let's go the beginning. I went to the ATP festival with klump, Lunica and Jochem. I was so happy I was able to convince Jochem to go seven months ago, because the line up of ATP was getting amazing, the Melvins had just been confirmed, and the accommodation of the festival with chalets and all just seemed too good. Nice chalets, two special ATP tv channels, a tropic swimming pool, Burger King, Pizza Hut, game machines, etc. But, the pound is extremely strong, and so that with the trip to England was going to be quite expensive. And it's not easy to ask friends if they're up to spend, pfff, 300 euros on the festival and the journey, to see some (mostly) underground bands, plus the money you will spend over there. So, then I found out the two person chalets were sold out, and just decided to ask klump an Lunica if they were up for sharing a chalet, because it was going to get sold out fast, and I knew they like the Melvins pretty much and I knew they had been to the UK before to see the Melvins. They both responded enthusiastic about the idea and decided almost immediately to go. And then it was just a matter of waiting for sevent months, getting enhustiastic and thrilled by all the reviews being posted here, and then finally it was getting closer and closer. I knew it was going to be great, but it was so much more than that. Not just the Melvins shows, but everything. klump and Lunica will most definitely back me up to that.

I could hardly sleep the Thursday night because I was kind of nervous about the Friday trip and check-in. Not like a child being nervous the night before his birthday, but because I didn't have any tickets yet. I had booked with easyJet airline - an online company that doesn't use tickets - and my tickets for ATP were not sent out because I had to pick them up at the festival. I was required to bring the credit card that I had used to pay the tickets, but I didn't have it anymore since my wallet got stolen last summer. So I just kept thinking about the worst case scenario and finally got to sleep around 3 a clock, I had to get up at 6.30. The flight went good, and when me and Jochem arrived in Bristol, we immediately noticed how expensive England is. The bus ticket to the train station was a few times as expensive as they are over here in the Netherlands, and the same went for the train ticket to Taunton. From Bristol Temple Meads to Taunton by train took about an hour and a half. We thought it was gonna be shorter, because Taunton was the second station already - which over here would mean a 10 minute trip approx. - but it took much longer. The train passed a lot of stations, that are being used by other train companies apparently, something we don't have here, here it's just one company that used to a state company, until it got privatized about 10 years ago. When we arrived in Taunton, which was around 1 am, we had to take a bus to Minehead, where the festival was. I thought there were going to be special busses for the festival, but that wasn't the cases unfortunately. There were quite some festival visitors waiting for the bus, but we managed to get on a bus pretty fast anyhow because we were told to go to another bus stop and it worked. I though the bus trip was going to be short, but again, it took longer than I had expected; about an hour and a half. In the meanwhile I and klump kept each other updated about how the trip, and since we were travelling ahead of them, I kept them updated about the crowded situation in Taunton.

The bus trip went good, and had a funny end. We were on the bus with a group of people, who turned out being Scandinavian. When the bus stopped at the festival venue, an ATP employee got on the bus and said all the passengers had to get their tickets or reference numbers ready. One of the Scandinavians said he had no reference number but was on the guest list with his friends. The employee said there wasn't one, and he said he had to play in two hours. I already thought he had a familiar face but then it hit me; I had seen him playing with the practically unknown Finnish band Avarus a couple of months ago in Amsterdam. They're a minimalistic, experimental folk band that I thought could be worth checking out. It turned out I was right and it was actually one of my favourite shows of this year. More about that list later on. I and Jochem checked in and everything went ok. In the meanwhile klump had texted me the queue for the bus in Taunton was insanely long; they decided to take a taxi not much later.

Before we were going to check out our chalet, we decided to have a burger at Burger King first. It was already around 4 a clock I think, and we hadn't eaten much. While Jochem was standing in the line, I decided to look for a cash machine to get some British pounds. I immediately spotted Buzz and went automatically over to him to say hello. On forehand, I  always thought he would be a pretty difficult to talk to, or I wouldn't know what to say. I was proven totally wrong and Buzz was totally nice. He asked me how I was doing, where I was from and how the trip went from Amsterdam. He seemed sincerely interested and was quite talkative. I didn't want to bother him any longer so told him I was actually on my way to find a cash machine. He told me he knew were they were and walked with me to them. That was actually quite a special moment to me, and already after the first few minutes at ATP; walking and talking there, with Buzz. At the cash machine a drunken guy came over and told Buzz he came to ATP to see his hair. I told the guy I was quite sure he knew what Buzz's hair looked like and gave him the look I thought it was quite a lame thing to say to Buzz, as I'm sure he gets these questions all the time. The guy told me he recognized me from a show in Manchester. I said I was from Amsterdam and this was my first time in the UK. Buzz then told I actually had met the guy, but I probably just forgot. The guy then left. 
When of the things I talked about with Buzz was the bands he was planning to see. He told me he wanted to see Nurse With Wound, Dinosaur (he had seen them before at a festival and thought they were really good), Gang of Four, and also Comets 
On Fire I think. I also mentioned to him I was sharing my chalet with two Norwegians from the Melvins board. He seemed quite surprised by that, but in a good way. He told me that he had been checking the board maybe once or twice and thought there was a lot of crap on it. I said I agreed with him, but thought it's just great to have a place full of people pretty much obsessed with the Melvins (that was strange telling HIM), and it's about more than people who are stating untrue facts. He told me he once heard someone had once posted something about how he and Buzz were probably millionaires. I told him I thought that was a good example of people posting crap, and also told him that I thought millionaires would never tour so intensively and hard, and work so hard in general. He told me they would probably always  continue doing that, even if they would have been millionaires. That's always nice to hear.

So about an hour after that Jochem and I met klump and Lunica and we had some pizza and wine, that Jochem and I had already gotten from the supermarket. It's always nice to meet people you know from the internet, but it can be very weird. I think it was different this time, and we went along just great from the start. We decided to skip Flipper, because we were still chatting and would see them at the London show anyway, and would just start with the Melvins. We all agreed that wouldn't be a bad start of the festival. We went to the venue and saw Flipper leaving stage so we got some beer and waited for the Melvins doing a one hour set. Jochem and I both are blessed with a height of 2 metres, so we pretty much always have a good view at shows, especially in other countries where people are always shorter. I'm not gonna give a full review on the Friday show, but they were simply amazing. Dale and Coady were incredible together, and 
Jared proved why he's a great addition the band. I now understood why people mentioned here how this was the best line up they ever had. When I read about that, I always thought tightness isn't the most important thing, having seen many bootleg dvd's of shows from he late 80's and early 90's, but still thought that was a good thing to hear. They played the same setlist as they have been doing in the US, but without Hooch, Revolve and The Bit. Maybe some more, but I don't think so.

After the Melvins show I met up Welsh guy called Mike and his girlfriend Emily. They both were very friendly and it was nice meeting each other. Mike seemed intimated by my length at first which was funny; I sometimes forget I'm a pretty big guy Then, the four of us spotted Buzz in front of the Irish pub there (not that he was in there) and Buzz remembered me. Emily took a picture of me, Buzz and Mike, I'll post it later when I get it. A was wearing my SNIVLEM shirt and a guy came over and introduced him as John. John posts here under the name MacBastard and was so kind enough to offer a place to stay in London at his. He's also been very helpful with train tickets in the UK, and was very nice and friendly. I don't think I met any unfriendly people from the board this weekend. He met up with his friends again after a short chat, but we would stay in touch during the weekend.

Bardo Pond were also amazing, but I was also slightly drunk when I saw them. Klump and Lunica were pretty tired from the trip and went to the chalet quite early. I decided to gbowling for free, and it worked for fifteen minutes before I was being sent away. Then I went to a guy who was 'playing against himself', and I started watching him from the couch. He obviously felt emberassed so I took his place. I didn't throw any striked but Jochem did, I had a spare or two though! Then I saw the first tweny minutes or so of Dead C, and decided to check out Prurient but it was already finished unfortunately. We went back to our chalet and I went to bed around 3.

The next morning we were informed the Melvins were going to play an extra show. It turned out people weren't able to get in on the Friday and there was a long queue and all that, so they would play a 90 minutes set at 2.15 pm. We figured out that would probably mean some Big Business action and we were right. Dale's presence on guitar was really good, and the Melvins even played a slightly better show than the Friday night I thought. Maybe that was also because the crowd was quite calm, probably because most were pretty hungover. That didn't bother me though, because I had a great view up front, and Lunica and klump were also up front this time. Lunica filmed some stuff from the show, it will be put on YouTube soon, but let them catch their breath first! At the end during Lovely Butterflies Dale smashed a drumstick on his drumkit and it bounced off and went straight into the audience. It could have hitted someone pretty badly, but it didn't fortunately. The drumstick landed on the ground in front of Jochem, who grabbed it immediately. He never catches anything, nor do I, but we both agreed after yesterday  that's alright as long as the only thing you can cath, is a drum stick by Dale. (The show yesterday made him realize there's pretty much only one band that matters, even though he already knew them because of me of course, but never understood why I thought they were THAT genious. That started changing slowly by the way since about half a year ago, and since then he has bought like eight of their albums. I'm not sure if he found a new favorite band, but I do know the Melvins blew him totally away last weekend, and he's also probably still thinking about yesterday night.

After the Melvins show we went back to the chalet to recover from what we had just seen. And also, I wanted to get my earplugs for Hair Police, and a cup of coffee in a warm place seemed like a plan to everyone. After the coffee we had some wine and one glass lead to some others, and we also had some Jack's, who, as a close friend, I can call John. We just talked hours, and were missing one band after another. I understand that may sound to some as a total shame, because the line up was really great, but this was a great opportunity for all of us to spent some more time in the chalet, and we had just seen the Melvins for the second time with the London show still left to go. Lunica got more and more talkative after the wine () which was a good thing! Maybe I shouldn't haved poured some whiskey 'cause she got a little more quiet after that, haha. To be honest, I had expected a little more resistance from a female Norwegian Viking, but it seems that she's no game to Dutch giants who smoke more than they drink! Suddenly it was Saturday evening and the only bands we had seen were Big Business and the Melvins and we were slightly drunk, accept for Lunica, who couldn' t handle it anymore. Nah, she showed her Viking powers, recovered extremely fast as if she was a mutant, and we went to see Dinosaur. The queue was insanely long and we probably wouldn't be able to get in. We chosed to go to another venue instead and went to see Comets on Fire, but they only started playing in about an hour from that. Jochem and I went up front, and after the show Lunica and klump had gone to get something to eat. Jochem and I saw one Gang of Four song (At Home He's A Tourist), hung out a bit, and went back to the chalet. Klump and Lunica were watching tv, and we joined them. 
Pretty soon the wine was all gone, and Jochem and I switched to beer but we couldn't get drunk. We were chatting all night long and saw some great movies, but I forget some titles! A weird Japanse movie from 1969 was pretty cool, but a German movie about two gay looking aggresive guys who went to Peru for some reason was hilarious. Then we switched to Dead Man on the other channel of the two, and saw that. After an hour of Dead Man, everyone was pretty tired. and we went to sleep around 7.30. Jochem and I actually thought it would be fun to show up at the super market at 8 to get some whiskey and get drunk after all (or again, actually), but we didn't. No orgies in the chalet unfortunately, but we'll try to be more open-minded next time.

Sunday I woke up at 1 am and took a shower immediately because Dinosaur was going to play an extra set at 1.30 and I thought if I would hurry I might be able to get to see some songs. Quite some bands did actually, Deerhoof also, which shows the atmosphere of the festival I think, and also how cool the bands are. I did get to see them play Just Like Heaven, The Wagon, and a song off their first album, I can't recall the song title. After the show my stomach felt terrible, and I wasn't in for all the greasy and 'unhealthy' food at the venue, and I also couldn't find any fruit. It felt pretty terrible actually, also because I had been sleeping really bad. I went to see the first few songs before they blew one of their amps. I went back and the rest was slowly awakening. I got some hot coffee but it wouldn't help. We all went to the supermarket and Jochem bought another bottle of Jack's because he started to really like it. Of course, we also bought more wine. We got back and I took a glass of red wine and it was the best medicine, my stomach got 'better' immediately fortunately. Otherwise I think I would have vomited all over the place during Wolf Eye's set, which we all ended up not going to, because the booze and the 'gezelligheid' (a Dutch word, there's no good English for it, just look it up somewhere!) took over again. MacBastard came over and shared a glass with us. He thought it was amazing geeking out on the Melvins with klump, Lunica, norecess and a cop from Amsterdam, and so did we all! We watched some Melvins bootleg dvd's that I had burned for both klump and MacBastard, and after about two hours klump and Lunica went to get some pizza. I had noticed MacBastard had gotten pretty drunk and decided to go back to his own chalet, hehe. Jochem and I started speaking in Dutch then and found out we could hardly speak it anymore; we made funny sentences and we're unconsciously speaking English. We filmed it actually, but I wonder how it turned out. In the meantime we had missed both Wolf Eyes, Negative Approach, and were also gonna miss the MC5. I know that sounds crazy, but a chalet is just so much nicer than tent, and having seen the Melvins twice already made up for all that. And, I'm just gonna say it again, we just had an amazing time, really. We saw a lot of films again and Lunica twined my hair during Ghost Whorld; she still won the crazy hair contest by far.

That morning I had two hours of sleep, and klump and Lunica even less, an hour I believe, before we had to get up, check out and take the buss. MacBastard had gotten me and Jochem train tickets which was great, because otherwise we would have had to stand in a huge queue. Klump and Lunica avoided that by taking a cab to Taunton, and arrived in London Paddington an hour or two earlier than Jochem and I did. That train trip took two and a half hours, and on across me was a lady sitting from London who had been to Taunton for shopping. That's like I would go to the south of Netherlands to the smallest tiny little village there to buy a loaf of bread! Again, I felt like a zombie and my stomach was feeling horrible. Jochem and walked around at King's Cross where the Scala was, and decided to have some coffee at Starbucks. Guess who was sitting there behind his iBook enjoying a cup of probably non-instant coffee? Yep, Buzz was there. I didn't want to say hello a third time, but should have asked him about the merchandise at the show that night, as they had none at ATP. We met with klump and Lunica at Starbucks after Buzz had just left half an hour earlier and spent there some time before trying to find a pub where we could have some food. I knew I had to eat something but wasn't sure if my stomach would hold it. Surprisingly, I started feeling remarkably better after the first beer at the pub, even with hardly any sleep.

[norecess]

Funny enough, I wasn't as excited for the show as I normally would have been for a Melvins show. I was too busy worrying how I was gonna make it throught the show feeling so wasted. Klump had asked Tim at ATP if Porn were gonna play and he said they were. We met up with MacBastard and went to the Scala to stand wait untill we could get in, which didn't take too long. I was hoping they had the Trick 'n Riddle thing and the Electroretard album, but they had neither of those. I saw the ex-drummer of Electric Wizard, now Ramesses. I picked up the second BB Tour EP and we went inside. I still felt tired but the beer made me feel better. I had hoped for some seats on a balcony or something, but there was only a balcony, or a platform or whatever you call that, and no seats. But as soon as Porn it all didn't matter anymore. They played an amazing set and Dale did his Elvis performance and was really showing off on drums; good stuff! I also noticed immediately how amazing the sound at the venue was. Normally I don't notice that when it's 'just' good, but this was amazing. Dale was a-ma-zing and he said one of his favorite bands, Flipper, was about to play. Flipper were great, really. I don't care if people think they sound terrible and noisy, that's just Flipper, and they still rule. They had Krist Novoselic on bass and had played for about half an hour when something magical happened. I had already spotted Buzz on the side of the stage banging his head a little, and then I actually saw he had picked up his guitar and was tuning it!. I had noticed Steve DePace had said something to one of the guys of the Melvins cre shortly before that, and just knew something was gonna happen. When I bought my ticket I told my friend Derek from Amsterdam, another Melvins geek, how cool it would be if Buzz would join Flipper for Sacrifice or something, and he just told me that that seemed like very wishful thinking to me. It turned out I was wrong, because not only Buzz went on stage, also Dale and Coady jumped on! Coady was drumming, and Dale was just hitting both drum kits and driving them both nuts. Buzz was rocking out next to Krist Novoselic and it felt like history was being written! Ok, so then BB did their thing and Jared showed once again what an incredible singer he is, even better than I thought, and I already thouyght of him as an amazing singer! Also, he's agreat show man indeed, and shouted the audience during this song of which I can't recall the title, to shut the fuck up 'cause they were 'playing a show and need silence, concentration and focus'! I had missed maybe two songs to take a piss and buy everyone another beer.

And then, finally, Melvins. I knew it was going to get awesome, and it was. They played everything they had played at ATP as well, plus Hooch, Revolve and maybe some other song. There was some cool distortion on Buzz's vocals during Let It All Be, and, it was just all bad ass. Ever seen where you didn't lost interest for only one second at all? I have been now. I knew how good they were, they have been my favorite band by far for a long time now, but yesterday was like it came all out. The shows at ATP were AMAZING, but his was GODLIKE, heaven, I can't describe it. I guess that's what their music is for. It was also amazing I was there with my new friends klump, Lunica and MacBastard! Me and MacBastard were rocking out like crazy on all their stuff and sing along some stuff of which we knew the lyrics. I had completely forgotten about my tireness and slowly started to realize this very well might could have been the best show I have ever seen, and always will be.

I warned you this was gonna get long. It took some time but I just had to register this for myself, and share it with you. Jochem bought the last poster of the showed which was signed by everyone who played that night. For me, it's nice to see he finally understands what the power is that is Melvins. But also, it's not just a Melvins poster, it's the poster for the London show, December 11th 2006. To my surprise I spotted Andy and we chatted briefly. He also was sure recovering from what he had just seen. We all said goodbye and MacBastard, Jochem and I went running for the last train to Mac's place, which we missed. We then took a bus to his house which took about half an hour, and were only talking Melvins. And I missed klump and Lunica already, and still do! I slept for about 5 hours last night and then we got ready for the trip to the airport, London Gatwick. Mac dropped us off at London Bridge and we said goodbye.

To me it felt like we all had been knowing each other for years already, which was really magical. I made some great 'new' friends, had an amazing time, drank a lot of alcohol but didn't get really pissdrunk (which is a fortunate thing) and saw one of the best Melvins show ever, no doubt. It's 1.37 am already, and I've already been playing (A)SA, Bullhead, Eggnog (again, nice sweater, klump!) and Lysol, and now it's Air Breather.. from Honkey. Now I

[CH]

That's a GREAT review!  Thanks NORECESS!

[Idlehanz]

That was an awesome recollection of your whole experience and a great read  Cool that you converted a friend and sounds like a overall bitchin couple of days.  I'm thinking the end of this month will be the same for us up here in the northwest.

[tommyhc]

Living the concert experience through your words is quite something.

Jesus I should of timed howlong that took me to read.. Where has my night gone.

[bUTTHOLEmAN]

Wow!  That was like my eyes had seen the concert you described!  Good work.   Now, I have to ask, did you three imbibe the weed?  Did you inhale?  What kind of shenanigans went on inside that carnal chalet of desire?

[klump]

how can I add something here?

hmmm... I actually think it was more winebottles, hehe

we had a great time!

[norecess]

Wow!  That was like my eyes had seen the concert you described!  Good work.   Now, I have to ask, did you three imbibe the weed?  Did you inhale?

Hey thanks! No, we hadn't brought any. My buddy is a police office so absolutely can't take the risk, and I didn't want to take the risk missing two Melvins shows, I mean three! However, when we got in England we both realized we, or I, could have easily taken a few grams with us. Only, I think he would have ended up like MacBastard did with us Sunday night for at least once. And now I'm an alcoholic, which is nice too. And incredibly stoned too. Could someone please explain to me why someone would get so stoned again after having lost so many hours of sleep? It's 4 in the morning goddamnit. I think after the Mangled Demos has finished playing? Or will I go listen through the entire discography? I hope not, but obviously I'm not the one in control here. And, haha, I just realize there's a bottle of John's in my bottle. 20 Goddamn pounds!

What kind of shenanigans went on inside that carnal chalet of desire?

There are children reading here too. I would have to ban myself when I would reveal that sort of stuff. Oh and btw Lunica, you owe me a few bananas after that trick of yours Saturday night.

[tommyhc]

Oh and btw Lunica, you owe me a few bananas after that trick of yours Saturday night.
[/quote]

hahahahahahahah
that reminds me of Winona's ping-pong ball trick.

[M i C H e L L e]

Wow! That was an excellent review, Maar!  I'm glad all of you had such an amazing time!  What an unforgettable weekend!

[ManWithNoName]

That's a pretty good review... for a wino.

[norecess]

That's a pretty good review... for a wino.

Oh this was nothing

[FartLips]

the mother of all reviews!

[Lunica]

Will apples do? I ate all the bananas

I just woke up like 6:30, and had to check the board before i went back to sleep for half an hour  before i HAD to get up to go to work. But I realize now it took me half an hour just to get to the end of this thread. And I can feel a hangover coming.. This is gonna be a weird day for sure.

[FartLips]

He told me he once heard someone had once posted something about how he and Buzz were probably millionaires.

this was recent...

http://www.themelvins.net/forum/index.php?topic=7074.0