Chimpomatic | Melvins Review - Highbury Garage, London - 2009

Melvins

Highbury Garage, London

Back in London 364 days since their last appearance, the mighty Melvins play the Garage as a sweet prelude to this weekend's ATP festival in Minehead. Almost bouncing onto the stage to the tune of Rawhide, King Buzzo looks like he's in a terrific mood tonight, and he and Dale Crover play as a two piece for the first half hour of their set - just guitar and drums and vocals. This works really well - a real case of less is more - and it would seem that Buzz has abandoned his rather transistorised guitar sound of recent times for a big chunky amp sound again. Buzz and Dale run through a selection of Melvins tunes including a brilliant version of Black Bock and a rough round the (vocal) edges cover of "Let Me `Roll It" by Wings, before being joined by Jared Warren and Coady Willis and becoming the full version of the band.

They are in good form tonight - the setlist has changed a lot since last year, and the band sound enthusiastic for the newly selected material. We get to hear a really wide range of Melvins tunes from the popular (Hooch, The Bit) through to the obscure (Anaconda, Pigs Of The Roman Empire) plus another great cover version - Devo's Mr DNA (well spotted there Jimbo). Some technical issues create a couple of false-starts tonight, and a sudden departure from the stage for about 15 mins - quite unusual - but as soon as they get rolling again, they sound great. Plenty of tracks from last year's Nude With Boots, plus a host of classics including Night Goat, With Teeth and It's Shoved.

You can see why the Melvins are celebrating 25 years of left-field metal - never content to rest on their laurels, always shifting the line-up and band dynamics and always revisiting older material with a new approach. The Melvins is - and always will be - Buzz and Dale, and tonight they showed that they are perfectly capable of working just as a duo. I wouldn't feel cheated if that's how they chose to tour for a while. Still, it was great to hear them both ways tonight - the highlight of the show had to be Pigs Of The Roman Empire which wouldn't have sounded the same without Jared's huuuge bass sound. Anyway, you've just got to love a band that plays cover versions of songs by Wings, Alice Cooper and Devo in one gig.

#Harris Pilton
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#Gig

10th Dec 2009 - Tweet - Tumblr

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Christine Levitra

Only 4 stars, why? I thought you were chimps Ipecac/Melvins fanboy. I was also at that gig and having never seen the Melvins before, I have to say I was left open mouth when they turned into a 4 piece and let rip. That was a monster sound, my boyfriend had warned me they were heavy but I wasn't expecting that. Is it because they have some fat members in the band, or have they got better songs they didn't play. Can they be better than that?

9th Mar 2010 5:33pm

Chris

Pigs of the Roman Empire blew me away. Everyone seemed to really get into it, the pit was crazy, the Melvins are great with Coady and Jared. I really think they add a great dimension.

Just awesome. I love them, but didnt think they would be that good.
Shame on me.

10th Dec 2009 10:11pm