ComfortComes

Jesus Lizard @ The Filmore at Irving Plaza, New York 11-16-09

I never saw Jesus Lizard in the 90′s. I actually got into them through Tomahawk, guitarist Duane Dennison’s band with Mike Patton. Last night, I went to go see them.

Jesus Lizard are the reason people should go see live music. I have a lot of their albums. I’ve always liked them alright, but they’re not on the same level of what this band sounds like. People can argue between analog and digital. I say its all bullshit. The only pure form to listen to music is with the band ten feet in front of you.

And by the way, Irving Plaza really has amazing sound. I haven’t seen a rock show there the few years. This year, I saw both Isis and Jesus Lizard and I really think it may be the best sounding venue in NY.

Anyway, I got there last night ant The Melvins’ Houdini was playing over the PA. At that point, I knew it was going to be a good night.

Skeleton Key took to the stage. I’ve always really liked them. To be honest, I didn’t buy a ticket to this show until I saw that they were added to the bill.

And being that they’re from Brooklyn, I haven’t seen them nearly enough. They’re cool, though. They’re a four-piece punk band that has a percussion section made out of metal garbage (pots and pans) and tools.

I don’t really know a lot of their song titles, but they played the two songs that I really like a lot. They played Roses and the song where they hit the guitar with a phone (I wasn’t lying).

Singer, Erik Sanko, gave the crowd some advice to get yourself a band and then play with The Jesus Lizard. Adding that its a lot of fun and that he does it about every ten years.mk

Then came the Jesus Lizard. The crowd went nuts. The front half of Irving Plaza started moving. They’re another band I don’t know a lot of song titles. I know that they played Boilermaker, Blockbuster, and Then Comes Dudley throughout their 90-minute set (including two encores).

Singer David Yow liked to finish a lot of songs crowd-surfing, which was pretty impressive, because he didn’t have a wireless mic. He, also, somehow cut his face during the first song and had blood on his face throughout the set.

One weird moment: at some point, Yow said it was great touring with the best band in the world, but then amended his statement to say that the Melvins are the greatest band in the world. That’s not the weird thing; I totally agree. What’s weird is that I saw Yow with another band, Qui, a couple years back, and he made a similar statement. This leads me to believe that Yow (a lot like myself) has been going around every day arbitrarily mentioning how great the Melvins are. That’s cool. More people should do it.

Anyway, there are a couple more weeks to this tour, and if you live in any of the remaining cities, do yourself a favor and go see Jesus Lizard. Seriously, they’re great.

UPDATE: I added some great pics and the setlist thanks to friends on the Ween forum.

Puss
Gladiator
Seasick
Killer McHann
Glamorous
Mouth Breather
Destroy Before Reading
Nub
My Own Urine
Dancing Naked Ladies
Monkey Trick
Boilermaker
Blue Shot
Chrome
7 vs. 8

Dudley
Bloody Mary
Thumbscrews
Blockbuster
Wheelchair Epidemic

Thumper
If You Had Lips
Fly On The Wall

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