Wino Wednesday: The Obsessed, “Brother Blue Steel” Live at Hellfest 2012
I’ll be perfectly honest with you. My intention was to post a clip of The Obsessed from 1994 for this week’s Wino Wednesday that was filmed in North Carolina. It was two songs and I didn’t recognize the second one. I went through and tried to figure out what track it was, and was reasonably certain it was a different version of “Brother Blue Steel” from 1991’s Lunar Womb (I’ve since revised the hypothesis), but as I was checking out different versions of the song, I stumbled on this one from last year’s Hellfest in France, and I decided it was too good not to run with it.
You can really hear Guy Pinhas‘ bass, but it’s not blown out, and I think my favorite part might be just before a minute and a half in, when someone in the crowd in front of whoever was shooting raises not a glass, but an entire pitcher of beer in The Obsessed‘s honor. I guess that says a lot, but whatever’s left, the lumbering shuffle of the verse to “Brother Blue Steel” most likely has it covered. And if it’s any consolation to someone interested in seeing the clip from North Carolina 18 years earlier — which I’m sure I’ll feature here eventually — I think drummer Greg Rogers is wearing the same hat.
Of all guitarist/vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich‘s bands over the years, The Obsessed are still the most straightforward. They’re doom and that’s it. When and if it arrives, a new studio album could carry new twists, but in their initial run, they were never fancy. Spirit Caravan were more stoner, The Hidden Hand were more political, Saint Vitus is a different songwriting process, and everything else is a collaboration of some sort other than the acoustic stuff. Listening to The Obsessed is like looking at a plant’s roots. There may or may not be more colorful parts of the plant, but if you want to know where that plant came from there’s only one place to go.
Enjoy “Brother Blue Steel,” and have a great Wino Wednesday:
