Some context: I was in Connecticut with The Patient Mrs. for some familial-type obligations and a couple days of the madness known as relaxation, but that wasn’t going to keep me from seeing the Melvins and Totimoshi at Webster Hall in NYC, so I hopped in I-95 South last Friday after posting the Frydee video and sat for about three hours to make an hour and a half trip.

It was only stressful because I didn’t see Totimoshi at Roadburn, and so wanted to catch their set. The show was early because Webster Hall knows what pays the bills, and that’s dance parties for yuppie assholes. 10:30 or so, and they come in and the Melvins crowd is out. Fine. Totimoshi were on stage as I paid my $30 to get in at 7PM. I barely made it.

Isis headlined. It was their last tour, and no, I didn’t stay. I’m sorry. I wasn’t interested enough to even listen to the free promo download I got of their last album, so I would have felt disingenuous staying for their set just because it’s allegedly the last time I’ll get to see them. I already have my good memories of killer Isis shows. I don’t need any more. Plus I had three more hours of traffic to sit in to get back to The Patient Mrs., and I didn’t want to miss out on that.

I like Totimoshi. I’ve liked Totimoshi for a long time now and I still like them. I think that was probably the biggest stage I’d ever seen them on, and even with drummer Chris Fugitt using half of the Dale Crover/Coady Willis combined megakit, they sounded good. But really, I’m just pulling for Totimoshi because I think they should be headlining tours instead of this perennial “always the bridesmaid” thing they seem to have going on. They could very well have sucked and I’d be blinded by my affection for them. Doesn’t mean I enjoyed the set any less.

Although, one thing about this show: it was fucking packed. And hot. And after three hours of 95, I was, well, a grumpy little bitch. About everything. I was grumpy shelling out $30 for a show I knew I wasn’t going to see all of, I was grumpy they were sold out of Melvins box sets (though the new album was just $10, which I happily paid), and I was grumpy smashed in with a douchetastic NYC crowd in the sweltering Webster Hall main room. Normally, beer is the solution to this, but the last thing I wanted was a dooey (I think that’s how it’s spelled, though I’ve seen it as D-U-I too), so I just stewed in it.

And then came the Melvins. They kicked ass. That’s all there is to it. They were really tight, the material sounded really good — highlights being the call and response of “The Water Glass” and “Electric Flower” from The Bride Screamed Murder and a couple nods to the Lysol record in the form of the Flipper cover “Sacrifice,” “Hung Bunny” and “Roman Bird Dog” — bassist Jarred Warren was dressed as a super hero, Crover and Willis‘ two-man drumset looked and sounded killer, and Buzz Osborne led the charge as only he could. Leaving when they were done, I didn’t feel like I was missing the highlight of the evening.

I took some pictures, but they sucked. I took some video, but the batteries died (hence the Bonnaroo clip below). And finally, I took myself back to Connecticut, where I watched the Black Sabbath Classic Albums: Paranoid DVD again (thanks, Pete), and called it a night. I don’t know whether to mark it a win or not — I think the math works out in the red, though I haven’t drawn up any charts — but fuck it, two killer sets is a big help when it comes to focusing on the positive, and I’m going to try to do just that.

Tags: California, Ipecac, Los Angeles, Melvins, Seattle, Totimoshi, Washington

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.