TK
10-28-2005, 07:59 AM
You totally should know this already, but if you don't, Jello Biafra was the lead singer/songwriter of 80s punk/hardcore band Dead Kennedys, and is one of the most legendary stage performers in underground rock music. The Melvins are a classic fusion of punk, hardcore, and metal with whom he has now teamed up to create a super-band, playing original material and Dead Kennedys classics. This past Wednesday night, I had the amazing experience of seeing them live, and below is the edited-for-length transcript of my experience at the show, copied from my livejournal:
In terms of sweat, this show is second only to the Lightning Bolt show where over 200 people were crammed hip to hip in a church basement and the heater was broken so they couldn't turn it off.
In terms of audience enthusiasm, this show is probably on par with when I saw the Queers, and the Queers have the most rabid fan base I have ever encountered.
In terms of me stage diving, this show is the first, and therefore is totally unprecedented!
In terms of the amount of sheer incredulosity at actually getting to see, interact with, and get splashed with the sweat of one of my musical heroes, this show is second to none. And that includes when I saw Lisa Loeb (not that there was any sweat involved in her show.)
And in terms of volume, this show is absolutely number one, no competition. My ears were so traumatized by this experience that when I first came out of the venue, everything anyone said sounded as though they had inhaled about six helium baloons, just because my ears were ringing so much.
After the opening band played (a weird, vaguely Flipperish punk band called Clockcleaner, who were a rhythmic powerhouse and quite impressive in their own right, no matter how overshadowed they were by the headliners), the Melvins bass player came out doing some annoying noise thing for about five minutes, but as soon as they got that out of the way and the full band took the stage, they were AWESOME. I like them much better as a live band than I do on record. They wore <a href=http://bdwop.free.fr/Images/photos/furyfest2005/DSCN0768.JPG>funny</a> <a href=http://bdwop.free.fr/Images/photos/furyfest2005/DSCN0772.JPG>outfits</a>.
But boy, that was nothing compared to when Jello went on. Everybody just flipped out. He came out wearing something that looked like <a href=http://spiritribe4.free.fr/Spiritribe4/Photo/FURYFEST-2005/01-Vendredi24/01-Main/01-Jello-Biaffra/Hamer-Jello11.JPG>a bloody lab coat</a>, which came off after the first song to reveal a hilarious <a href=http://foto21.hypermart.net/jello/jello3.jpg>American flag button-up shirt</a>, and then that came off to reveal a <a href=http://blog.wfmu.org/photos/fury_fest_2005/jbm30001.JPG>"DEMOCRACY: WE DELIVER"</a> shirt with a picture of what I THINK was a bomber on it, though it was a sort of old-fashioned looking plane so I can't be sure. It was an airplane, at any rate. The crowd was so into it, and I was right up at the front. I got to scream the vocals into Jello's mic a bunch of time, hold him up when he dove onto the crowd, and leap onto the crowd myself. Crowd surfing is a lot of fun, and I stayed up an impressively long time. Not so fun was the one point where everybody pushed so far up against the stage that my leg got almost completely crushed between a horde of punks behind me and one of the platforms for the stage monitors. SPEAKING of the monitors, they KEPT getting shoved too far forward by the riotous crowd, and the roadie dudes had to rush forward and shove everybody backward and fix them like five times.
(Note that these pictures aren't from the show I was at, but they are the same tour and all the same clothes the guys were wearing on Wednesday.)
They played some Dead Kennedys classics (including the updated version of California Uber Alles, now about Schwartzenegger!) and the best of the new Jelvins material as well. And they finished JUST in time for my friend and me to catch our train home!
So in conclusion: I think the tour is actually over now for Americans but if you live in Europe go see them or you're an idiot.
In terms of sweat, this show is second only to the Lightning Bolt show where over 200 people were crammed hip to hip in a church basement and the heater was broken so they couldn't turn it off.
In terms of audience enthusiasm, this show is probably on par with when I saw the Queers, and the Queers have the most rabid fan base I have ever encountered.
In terms of me stage diving, this show is the first, and therefore is totally unprecedented!
In terms of the amount of sheer incredulosity at actually getting to see, interact with, and get splashed with the sweat of one of my musical heroes, this show is second to none. And that includes when I saw Lisa Loeb (not that there was any sweat involved in her show.)
And in terms of volume, this show is absolutely number one, no competition. My ears were so traumatized by this experience that when I first came out of the venue, everything anyone said sounded as though they had inhaled about six helium baloons, just because my ears were ringing so much.
After the opening band played (a weird, vaguely Flipperish punk band called Clockcleaner, who were a rhythmic powerhouse and quite impressive in their own right, no matter how overshadowed they were by the headliners), the Melvins bass player came out doing some annoying noise thing for about five minutes, but as soon as they got that out of the way and the full band took the stage, they were AWESOME. I like them much better as a live band than I do on record. They wore <a href=http://bdwop.free.fr/Images/photos/furyfest2005/DSCN0768.JPG>funny</a> <a href=http://bdwop.free.fr/Images/photos/furyfest2005/DSCN0772.JPG>outfits</a>.
But boy, that was nothing compared to when Jello went on. Everybody just flipped out. He came out wearing something that looked like <a href=http://spiritribe4.free.fr/Spiritribe4/Photo/FURYFEST-2005/01-Vendredi24/01-Main/01-Jello-Biaffra/Hamer-Jello11.JPG>a bloody lab coat</a>, which came off after the first song to reveal a hilarious <a href=http://foto21.hypermart.net/jello/jello3.jpg>American flag button-up shirt</a>, and then that came off to reveal a <a href=http://blog.wfmu.org/photos/fury_fest_2005/jbm30001.JPG>"DEMOCRACY: WE DELIVER"</a> shirt with a picture of what I THINK was a bomber on it, though it was a sort of old-fashioned looking plane so I can't be sure. It was an airplane, at any rate. The crowd was so into it, and I was right up at the front. I got to scream the vocals into Jello's mic a bunch of time, hold him up when he dove onto the crowd, and leap onto the crowd myself. Crowd surfing is a lot of fun, and I stayed up an impressively long time. Not so fun was the one point where everybody pushed so far up against the stage that my leg got almost completely crushed between a horde of punks behind me and one of the platforms for the stage monitors. SPEAKING of the monitors, they KEPT getting shoved too far forward by the riotous crowd, and the roadie dudes had to rush forward and shove everybody backward and fix them like five times.
(Note that these pictures aren't from the show I was at, but they are the same tour and all the same clothes the guys were wearing on Wednesday.)
They played some Dead Kennedys classics (including the updated version of California Uber Alles, now about Schwartzenegger!) and the best of the new Jelvins material as well. And they finished JUST in time for my friend and me to catch our train home!
So in conclusion: I think the tour is actually over now for Americans but if you live in Europe go see them or you're an idiot.