The MELVINS Shack - Melvins The Troubadour -Hollywood, CA

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Melvins
The Troubadour
Hollywood, CA
28 August 1999

Pics copyright

Catherine Veit

Pics copyright Gene Candelaria

All hail King Buzzo. A King among kings.
Saturday night, August 28th 1999, the show that the Melvins put on at the Troubadour was THE best I've been lucky to attend.
It was packed, too. I don't know who got the word out that the Melvins rock, but there were all kinds of folks there. I saw at least three parents w/kids (two Moms and a Dad), youngsters and oldsters (I thought I was old, but there were some seniors there). Most every race and faction of human you want to name was there. It was like Eutopia Melvins style.
Well, Beth Liebling (Sadie 7, I think) finally got her shit together and decided to show up, so Hovercraft was on. Ya think they might be heavily influenced by Sid Barrett and early Pink Floyd? I do. It was definitely trippy psychadellia. I would've dropped some acid, had I known what to expect. They had the MTV connection going with a film loop of bugs and eyes and fire fire fire and stuff going on a screen behind the drummer. It was pretty cool for the first fifteen minutes and then I kinda got real tired of em. But I respect them for doing what they do. More power to them.
At last, Dale tuned his drums, Kevin's bass was tuned, and Buzz's guitars were set up. Out they came and proceeded to rock the hell out of the Troubadour. Buzz was in top form and the only time I saw him fuck up was when he was moving backwards and stumbled on his effects rig. He stepped on his volume and cut his guitar out, but quickly fixed things. He was really full of energy. Thrashing his head and getting down low to the stage. He was sweating up a storm and the group of us in front of the stage in his line of fire got drenched. When he'd sing you could see the stream of humidity shooting out his mouth. We had been anointed! I got more than a couple drops in my mouth, which kinda grossed me out, but I thought what the hell...it's Buzzo! This mohawk kid kept vaulting on my shoulders and grabbing at Buzz's guitar and Buzz didn't seem to mind. I tried to keep that kid back.
I can never keep great track of the set, but they did:
amazon
AMAZON
manky
see how pretty, see how smart
let it all be
hog leg
with teeth
the bloat
the bit
let it all be
jew boy flower head
youth of america
let god be your gardener
eye flys
Tool Adam did a couple songs with his keyboard/synth. But, the coolest thing he did was come out and play guitar on Eye Flys. He has an effects peddle strapped ONTO his guitar! And did some very interesting things. What a musician and technician. I can hardly wait for the next Tool project.
Before Eye Flys, they took a breather and Buzz spoke to the audience after giving us a sample of his spoken word of Queen's "We Are the Champions". He thanked us all for supporting them and coming to this and so many shows. He said how he was glad to be back home in LA and how this is the best place to live. He specifically mentioned Montana, Idaho, Maine and Florida as places that sucked. He claimed that the Idahoans told them to get out and that people only go to Florida to die. He told us we didn't realize how lucky we were. Someone yelled at him to get a haircut and he said something along the line of, "Yeah, right. I think I'll start taking fashion tips from my audience. What do you guys think I should do with my hair? Should I cut it? Should I go get with Sharon Osbourne and do what she says? What about my clothes? Should I change them? FUCK NO! I'll change them when I feel like it! I'll take a bath when I feel like it! Not when somebody says I should! People tell me I should got back to school. Back to school? Why would I want to do that? Fuck no!" Anyway, Buzz thanked us for supporting the new albums and to look forward to the next releases.
Saw Dan Raymond lurking in the shadows of the VIP balcony. How was the view above the masses? Was I seeing things or was Leif Garrett up there too? Nope. Rumoured to be in the hoosegow.
Buzz has been using only five strings on his guitars for a while. This is the first time I noticed it. I heard he just recently started removing the extra string head on his guitar. Kevin had another "I LOVE COCK" tshirt. Dale had NAMBLA and Honky stickers on his bass drum. The drummer from Hovercraft set up his drums facing Dale and he did a couple songs with the Melvins. I wasn't able to talk to anyone from the band this time. I didn't get a double-headed doll, or anything, but my friend got one for his ten year old daughter. She dug it and they're saving it in a big plastic ziplock bag.

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