I’ve been hesitant to post a live review of Monday night’s Eyehategod show in Brooklyn for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I’m not the world’s biggest Eyehategod fan. I dig it, obviously, but for me to sit here and tell you that I’ve followed the New Orleans sludge masters since the early-’90s days of In the Name of Suffering and Take as Needed for Pain would just be dishonest. I own the albums, and several others, but I’m hardly Mr. Ground Floor EHG. I’m not Johnny Come Lately either, but in some ways, I feel underqualified to write about them.

Likewise, for me to sit here and say, “Well man, Eyehategod sure did kick ass in Brooklyn” — even though they did — would be boring as hell. It was my third Europa show in a month, packed as hell, and I was still glad to be there. That’s saying something in itself. And yeah, Eyehategod were great. Jimmy Bower rules, Brian Patton rules, Mike Williams stood on stage and accused us northerners of thinking the south is ignorant, called us motherfuckers and told us he loved us. It was a good show. I’m just not sure how much more there is to say about it than that.

I got there just before Unearthly Trance went on. It was late for a Monday, but don’t ask me for the particulars. I know I didn’t get back to the valley until 3AM, but I wasn’t really checking my watch before that, so whenever it was, it was. They played about 30 seconds of their first song before blowing their bass head and having to find a replacement. To their credit, they gave an okay showing once they got started again. Neither am I the world’s biggest Unearthly Trance fan, and seeing them play in New York at this point is hardly out of the ordinary, but I wasn’t pissed for having to watch them either.

The crowd went apeshit for Eyehategod. Last time I saw them was at C.B.G.B.’s, so that should give some indication of how long it’s been, and the same thing happened there. A pit. I can’t even remember the last show I went to that had genuine pitting, but I guess when you specialize in the kind of nihilistic sludge malevolence Eyehategod does, that kind of punk rock intensity coupled with addicted fuck-all, someone is bound to get punched in the face. It wasn’t me.

Question of the evening was, “Were you at the boat show?” referring to the Rocks off Concert Cruise the band played two days prior. “Dude, I thought the boat was gonna sink,” “Man, it was so packed” and “It was fucking sweet” were pretty much the reports I heard. No, I wasn’t there. I don’t recall what I was doing last Saturday, but it seemed like a valid excuse to not pay $40 to be crammed on the Hudson, packed in so tight I couldn’t move or see the band play. Whatever it was.

The only downer of the boat show, reportedly, was their set had gotten cut short. They made up for it in Brooklyn, playing for nearly two solid hours. It was a wonder they managed to keep their intensity up, but they did, right to the end. It was a sweaty, sludgy, drunken mess. Not a bad way to start the week, and not much else to tell. We’ll see if I can come up with anything else five years from now when they decide to come back.

Tags: Brooklyn, Eyehategod, New Orleans, Sludge

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.