Melvins @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn 6-19-10
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed The Melvins’ new album, The Bride Screamed Murder, which was released on June 1st. That same day, they began their North American tour.
Isis has joined them for a week, and it turns out that these are some of the last shows that they will ever play. Although originally billed as Melvins/Isis, Isis has been headlining shows. There’s some speculation on the switch is that it turned out to be Isis’ final tour. However, it probably had more to do with the fact that The Melvins shared drums and equipment with openers, Totimoshi. Either way, they finally made it to my neck of the woods, and it was a pretty excellent show.
I really enjoyed Totimoshi. I wasn’t very familiar with them heading into the show, but they put on a great performance. They do this Spaghetti Western Mexican doom metal thing, and it’s pretty cool.
Shortly after, The Melvins took to the stage. Buzzo had a new mumu with these Mackie horses on it. Jared had a sparkly cape and other sparkly stuff that looked like he should be playing in The River Bottom Nightmare Band. Dale and Cody were wearing these Mad Max looking things.
When the walked out, Dueling Banjos was playing over the PA. When they picked up their instruments, they jammed along with it for a little bit and went into Sacrifice. The setlist was pretty split down the middle between the stuff they wrote as a four-piece and the Pre-Big Biz stuff.
Early on, they played Black Stooges, which I was pretty happy about. I don’t think I’ve seen this incarnation of the band play anything off of HAT. Other highlights included Civilized Worm, Billy Fish, Water Glass, and Evil New War God. The closed out with Hung Bunny and Roman Bird Dog which was pretty phenomenal. Here’s the full setlist:
Sacrifice (Flipper)
Civilized Worm
Black Stooges
Pig House
Electric Flower
band intro
Anaconda
Black Bock
The Kicking Machine
Billy Fish
Lovely Butterfly intro
The Water Glass
Evil New War God
AMAZON
The Talking Horse
Hung Bunny
Roman Bird Dog
After that, Isis played. I probably would have been a bit more excited if they played before The Melvins, but they were still good. They opened with my favorite song of theirs’, From Sinking, which is cool. Then they played about an hour’s worth of stuff off of their last two albums (with one pretty old tune thrown in there), and closed with The Beginning and the End. Here’s their setlist:
From Sinking
Not in Rivers, But in Drops
Holy Tears
Threshold of Transformation
Collapse and Crush
Ghost Key
So Did We
In Fiction
The Beginning and the End
