03/04/2004 San Francisco,CA Great American Music Hall

[bUcKsAtAn]

I just woke up. its 11 o clock, and i am still fucking stoked!
Great show!!!!
I was in front of buzz too!! i was the absolute closest i could ever wish to get to him. stuffed between the stage and the PAs
fucking awesome!!!
yeah, sixty bucks for the book, i was two bucks short.
the guy next to me got book no. 0 he ended up going backstage(lucky bastard)
I kept getting questions like "whats on your sweatshirt"(it was the LOCUST) because apparently Patton has been wearing it lately...so that was interesting. my first time inside the gamh! great venue!! very beautiful.
the first "band" was Mackie on bass(i BELIEVE) and another woman on keys and vocals. they went through a few songs, very funny lyrics, kind of sad though. she told us that even if we had to blow somebody to get a book tonight, we should do it immediately!
I heard melt banana playing over the PA while we were waiting for the Phantom limbs to come on.
They came on, very cool band. Electronic rock. guys on keys and heavy ass drums. the singer was pretty crazy. he always jump into and onto the crowd, pushing and showing, spitting on people, and during one of their last songs, he jumped on a guy, threw the mic up on stage, and danced and pitted for about 4 minutes. fucking awesome.
and, of course, he puked on the tables in front of the stage while they were getting all his shit off stage.

MELVINs!
Immediately after Dale got set on his drums, he started LET IT ALL BE. i was stoked, that was the ONE song i HAD to hear, and they played it first!

I didn't recognize a lot of the songs i'm sorry to say. sounded like a lot of their really old stuff. i remember hooch and queen and a few(or one?) off of Stag. Buzz actually talked! he said thanks for coming out, and that san francisco was the best city in the world, but 'we already knew that.' then he said that 'we're gonna play for you, one of the first songs i ever wrote' and something like 'but thats no excuse' or something.
very, very heavy and punk! that is the typical song of theirs that got me into them!
anyway, I was absolutely stoked to see Patton sitting next to the stage(stage right) and having a beer. got a picture of him...cool.
Buzz, as usual, wearing the red cross and robe attire, dale in short shorts and a tank top, and kevin in a dress like deal, taped at the waist, and short green shorts. very short hair, and a 5 o clock shadow, giving him a very, very odd look, especially while he dances.
equipment that i saw: buzz uses three pedals, all BOSS, one black one(distortion?), yello(noise suppressor?) and white(delay?), a nice 4x12 Hiwatt amp, with two mini-, off-brand amps miked below it.
Kevin has quite an array of pedals, a hiwatt amp and an ampeq amp, as well as a little box with contols on it that, when he started it right before the first song, was samples of this really whiny bitch of a girl talking about stuff like 'do you wanna be my friend?'...almost like it was a sample from a doll or something.
Dale, beautiful purple set, with the barb-wire and chilli pepper drum head, and a nice Paiste gong set up behind him.

I took 24 pics in all, I'll have em developed in a few hours, and scan them at my friends' this weekend, so i'll try and have em up here on sunday or monday!
hope you guys can go!

[alnis]

AWESOME! I'm vicariously very excited.

Alnis

[Anonymous]

Ya man i just woke up to from the show last night. Overall i would give it an A because both bands ( not buzza wife) got the crowd goin real good.  I was the first guy the phantom limbs singer jumped on and he gnawed my cheek! was pretty cool though that guy was fuckin nuts he was tryin to get a pit started the whole time he was in the crowd.  But when the melvins came on the place errupted. I was at the front the whole show almost cept when melvins came on i got pushed a little back.  Night goat and Honeybucket were the two that i thought were badass.  Anybody else go last night?

[tesseract]

I was there.  It was intense.

The Fool, the Meddling Idiot was so well paced, it was hypnotic.

I was confused, I thought Biafra was opening for them.

I will be heading to Santa Cruz for next weeks show.

:sa

[CausesUnknown]

hahahaha, good stuff man. I was there too however. But I'll get some pics in before you. heh. Met Buzz, fuckin nicest dude in the world. Saw Dan (Altamont bassist) and chilled with him and got some info. Altamont wants to start recording for a new album, but they are going to wait until Dale gets his stuff done, and that he gets a little bit of a break. However, buck kinda gots his information wrong about the guy who got book no.1. I know him, me and his wife were standing out there since 4 or so. One of the security basically knows us since we're there often. He had 2 seats sidestage for them. They did not go backstage. Tho they did talk to Mackie and her friend she played with. They signed the book as well. The other women is an artist in there. Not sure of her name. Although I wasn't allowed to sit sidestage. I was allowed to be with them between bands and talk.

anyhow, I'll develop the setlist now....

Let it all be
?? <---I can't remember the second one
Manky
    These were the first 3 for sure, the rest is in no particular order
Black Stooges
untitiled track of HAT
The Fool, The Meddling idiot
Brain center at the whipples
Snake Appeal
Youth of America
Hooch
Night Goat
Queen
Tipping the lion <---I think
The bloat
They did the Kool Legged, Wispy, It's Shoved

There is probubly 3 other songs that I could not identify, sorry boys, I don't have gluey porch treatments. Maybe if that Melvins FTP was back up, I can identify the rest easily.

Anyhow, the show finish at 11:45 or so. Which is really early for them. Santa Cruz last year they played till 1:15 AM

[bUcKsAtAn]

I waited around after the show(in hopes of talking to patton) until about 1215,(the Melvins played exactly an hour, about 10:52 or so to 11:50) and saw the 'guy with the book'(a guy who showed me the book and it had no. 0 on it) and a girl with him escorted through the doors backstage. it could've been someone who looked like him.
he could've just been going out a different way, but i'm guessing he got to meet the guys.
sorry for any confusion, it's just what i saw.

[youdontknowme]

halo of flies

holy fucking shit!

so good i nearly died

[Sydspunk]

HAHA, i was standing right behind you Buck. i actually asked about the locust. Theres a bleeding through shirt with a similar logo.  i was the guy who kept bugging you befoer and during their set. haha.

it was a great show. my ear hurts something wicked. gotta see those pics.

Causes- i dont recall them playing Brian Center at Whipples. and they played Halo of Flies. someone was bootlegging it, i shouldve talked to him.

[Me]

It was awesome. I have been going to Melvins shows for 12 years now and last night was great. Did anyone else check out the book? It's really cool and contains some old photographs as well as tons of art.

[cheeseburger]

so this is me...sorry if i kicked any of you in the head.



the rest are pretty blurry. like i said we were pretty wasted so im not surprised that alot of the pics didnt turn out.

[popeye]

Hey!  thank you all!  how exciting - I like the setlist alot.  the fool the meddling idiot - Brain center at Whipples - i like that HAT stuff a lot, and some old ones - reTooled of course.  Bring it Buzzo goddammit.

[blacksanta]

Hey great! A WHOLE sixty minutes, Just Like the HAT Tour! And most of the same songs from the last couple of tours! OHHHHHHHHHHH BOOOOYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!    

Sorry for those who can't make it or who have not had the chance to evere see them before (which sucks), but when you have seen the Melvins do shows that take two or three sets, with a ton of variety....well, what the hell? Maybe Ween has spoiled me with two and a half hour shows.... but then again, I know the Melvins are capable of more than a sixty minute set.

I was the one who left the negative review of the '03 Roseland set (which I admit they were opening for Tomacrap), it got sandwhiched into a positive review after Brian overhauled the site. I guess...well... I'm not sure what else to say, except that not only will I be there throwing down sixty bucks for the book, but I will also be enjoying all 59 minutes and 30 seconds of the Melvins, and leaving with a strange empty feeling that that sure was friggin' brief. I think this new found love of the brief set comes from the amount of side projects the members are involved in. I think it's great for the members, but I guess for those of us who could give or take all of the other bands, it means that the Melvins will not be as prolific in regards to set lenght, variety of songs played, or amount of new material.

But God I love 'em anyway....My opinion don't mean shit in the face of twent years of the greatest rock and roll.

I'll post a Portland review late Saturday night.

Blacksanta

[chooch]

top flight show... maybe the best i've seen by them. well, besides seeing them in a tiny club 10 years ago.

walked in with enough time to piss and grab a beer before let it all be started up... great first song! from then on it was a seamless performance, with the exception of kevin's bass going out at one point.

i was reminded what an awesome addition kevin is... from his retarded outfit and hair, to his fucked up bass sounds and his beautiful art of spitting. oh, besides being a truly creative player.

the great american is hands down the BEST club in SF! great fucking sound, great atmosphere, staff and that extra beer counter kicks ass!!!

anyway, a really inspiring evening all around...


oh, btw, the second song was lovely butterflies

[Swagger]

Excellent show!!!

They didn't play The Bloat unfortunately. I don't remember hearing Wispy or Kool Legged either.

Off the top of my head in no particular order:

Let It All Be
Lovely Butterfly
Manky
Youth of America
Tipping the Lion
Queen
Hooch
Black Stooges
Promise Me
With Teeth
Fool and the Meddling Idiot
Night Goat
One of the OLD Melvins speedy punk numbers written when Buzz was "still a virgin". Couldn't place it.
Oven-I think they played this.
It's Shoved
Show ended with their cover of Alice Cooper's Halo of Flies

I don't remember them doing anything from GPT. I might have forgotten a song.

[Swagger]

Oh, they also had a really cool poster for the show on sale.

It is a picture of everyone's favorite- Jesus Christ- with Buzz's hair imposed on top of his head. At the top it reads-"Twenty years and still bigger than Jesus."  Hysterical.