Melvins @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn 6-6+7-11
Following January’s four-show Spaceland residency in LA, The Melvins decided to take their show on the road with an Endless Residency mini-tour: Seven cities. Two nights each. Two albums (2EPs = 1 album. It’s basic algebra, guys.) per night. Last week I was able to catch them when they stopped by Brooklyn.
Set 1-Eggnog/Lysol:
If you’ve ever seen The Melvins do one of these album things (or even if you have their live Houdini album), you know that they don’t stick very closely to the album’s original track listing. Their first set was a mashup of two EPs.
They opened up their two-night stand with nearly 40 minutes of sludgy drone: Charmicarmicat, Hung Bunny, and Roman Bird Dog. Then they blew through the rest of Eggnog in reverse order (which was really weird) and played the rest of Lysol, closing with Flipper’s Sacrifice.
Set 2-Houdini:
If The Melvins have a commercially successful album, I guess this is it. The song order was very similar to the way it was played a couple years back for their 25th anniversary shows. However, it was still a pretty different experience with the four piece.
Set 3-Bullhead:
This was probably my favorite set from the two nights. Hearing Zodiac is always a blast, and I’ve been wanting to hear You’re Blessened and Cow live for a long time. If I’ve ever heard them live before, it was a long time ago before I had Bullhead and didn’t know what they were. Anyway, they closed with Boris, which is cool because I think they stretch out the end part more and more every time they play it. They also add all these weird and goofy things in there too which is always fun.
Set 4-Stoner Witch:
Another really great set. I haven’t seen them play most of these songs before at all. They opened up with the slow building Levidity, rocked their way through the album in no particular order, and closed with Shevil.
At the end of the song, Buzz and Jared left the stage leaving Dale and Coady by themselves to close out the two-night stint with some insane drumming, which was already pretty mind-shattering right there. But after a while, I think it was Coady (but could have been Dale) started calling for Vinny. So Vinny Signorelli (Foetus, Swans, Unsane) walked onstage, took Dale’s spot at the drums, and Dale played drums from the front of the drum set. Unbelievable finish.
Anyway, great shows. There’s one city left. If you live in Minneapolis, go see both nights. It’s amazing.
