Let's do it again.

[62] Weedeater, Danava, Melvins, Down (2009)

I was folding laundry yesterday when it occurred to me I was only 24 hours away from seeing THE MELVINS. !!!!

Repeat many hours later when I am about to tell someone I'll be at THE MELVINS tonight, and I have another one of those excitement attacks. I didn't realize I was quite so happy about this until I went to say it out loud. Even the usual disgusted and annoyed reaction I get around my everyday people when I talk music couldn't bring me down.

And so I floated...

There weren't too many people there when I got there. The usual early-start show crowd. I looked onstage and though Danava and Weedeater have been trading opening spots and Danava was listed to open this show, Weedeater's drum kit was the first on stage. Not sure if it had to do with the fact that Danava lives here or what, but I was happy to see that.

I got up in front of singer Dave and managed to keep my spot through their entire set despite some guy trying his stoner hardest to be the first on barrier and get their attention. Immediately it was apparent that I was going to lose my hearing early. The "fuzz" was incredibly loud and when they eventually had a break in songs, everything sounded like whispers and ocean.

Setlist:
God Luck And Good Speed
Wizard Fight
For Evan's Sake
?didn't recognize it. something new? maybe i just brain farted.
Buzz
$20 Peanut
Weed Monkey

I imagine this setlist would be better if I didn't write it after the fact... I didn't know my memory could hold out two songs, nevermind seven.

It's weird how much brighter it is inside the Roseland in comparison to, a block down the street, the Satyricon where I saw them the first time last year. I could actually see what they were doing, GASP!. Apparently Dixie Dave crosses his eyes through almost the entire set. And looks like he's going to melt into the floor or collapse or something between songs even though he's so incredibly high energy during them. At one point he looked like he was going to vomit, which I was hoping not... And thank not.

Yep. And he and the drummer have apparent chemistry going... which was just beautiful during their last two songs.

One major difference this time around was no weed decorations... Last year they had a bunch of grass and such put up all around the drums. Not this time. And also, the taped up bottle of cough syrup was in a different location. heh.

Also during the last song, about a minute before it breaks down into craziness, Dave lost sound and there was a frantic searching for a new cable between his guitar and the whatever it was connected to. When he finally got it up, just before the breakdown (at 4:25 on album), he said something like "Sorry, we bought all of our shit at a pawn shop".

Anyway, of this whole show, I think I enjoyed them most.

 
Danava set up much faster than they usually do, probably having a lot to do with the amount of help.

They were all very beautiful as always. I think his name is Zach, the non-singing guitarist, he was in the grey Danava shirt that I bought a few months ago with the sleeves cut off. Looked better on him. Drummer was in an older version yellow Danava shirt for approximately one song. And Greg was wearing the usual jean vest covered in patches of band logos like Budgie (didn't do that on purpose I swear) over some faded black band(?) logo shirt I couldn't identify.

I just spent a paragraph describing what they were wearing. They didn't play music, they catwalked.

Was irritating how there didn't seem to be many people where I was that had heard Danava before yet, for a first opener, Weedeater's crowd was pretty active. Durr?

Setlist:
(jam intro) + UnonoU
Spinning Temple Shifting
something new
something new

All of the songs were played live at a Danava show or two before this in my history, so I'm wondering when those songs are going to make it to physical medium.

During "Spinning Temple Shifting", Pepper of Down came out and did some guitarin'.

And, for the last song, Phil came out and sung while reading a typed up piece of paper. The crowd sort of lost their mind when that happened.

Four songs = stupid.

 
I lost my spot before THE MELVINS came out and ended up behind tall people, and couldn't see the drummers much or clearly. Most of my view was of Jared. Guess what they were wearing? No, don't. Jared was wearing a ninja-ish shorts version of a crappy fatrobe. I bet you'll never guess how Buzzo was dressed. Yeah, he was wearing greasy overalls and a beret like always.

I didn't make the effort to setlist them.

The first "song" was apparently just jamming. Then it went into Nude With Boots and A Senile Animal songs, especially Boots, like an onslaught blur of everything the original Melvins didn't play a few months ago when they were here doing 1983/Houdini. As "hungover" I felt that day, I liked that show way more. This one had a degree of sterility to it... Plus they didn't sound so great at times, possibly having to do with how I was so close to one side of the speakers.

I was also getting irritated with someone who stood next to me. They needed to be punched in the jaw.

I'm pretty sure the crowd liked them.

 
I wasn't sure if I was going to stay for Down or what. I got a random inkling that they might do a song with one of the other bands and they took so long setting up that I only would have caught 15-20 minutes of their set if I would've left for the early bus or whatever, so I stayed through the whole thing.

And I don't like Down... so I have no songs for you even though they probably announced every single one of them. Phil did lots of talking. They had tons of energy but since every one of their songs sound the same (hey, was that Weedeater's "Weed Monkey" in there? Who took whose song here?) I was getting bored.

(Down - NOD or Weedeater - Weed Monkey?)

I did tons of crowd scanning and the security people had their work cut out for them. A couple of fights had to be broken up and people were kicked out. Bit of crowd-surfing, too, a couple of them pretty large men who kept coming back for more, so I'm sure the security guys up front were sore by the end of the night.

I had to wait until the very fucking last song of the night to see anyone else on stage. By this time I had moved to leave the building and ALMOST left... I mean, I was two baby steps away from the stairs when Phil said something or other about Danava. This extra couple of minutes of jackoffery probably wasn't worth it, but hey. I got to see the Danava guys play some more unfamiliar music. They're prettier up close.

 
And now I'm home, feeling incredibly achy from my long-ass walk and not sure how I'm going to feel in about 12 hours when I'll need to decide if "tomorrow" is my next show or the day after. Hard to say just yet. Do I really need to see Red Fang for a seventh time?! The answer is yes. Absolutely yes. Not sure if it'll be tomorrow or next month just now, though.

Edit: Oh yeah. On my way out of the venue, I was handed a free CD from Quandry. I've known of this band since probably 2005 and have been meaning to return so I can properly add to my "local bands that don't suck as hard as Jaguar Love" list I'm going to write someday... so that was weird.