Mudhoney / Comets on Fire

First impressions of The Rescue Rooms? A lovely but small place for a gig. I heard this was to be an intimate show but tonight was ridiculous. I don’t know whether I’m getting too old but the place was rammed, and it just kept filling up. Trying to get through the crowd with a drink and a rucksack with my precious camera in it was near on impossible. Like getting your bag stuck inbetween the train doors.

Anyway enough of my whining. The place had a nice crowd, all ready to see a band who rarely perform this side of the Atlantic.

First up Comets on Fire, a true grunge band who could really feel the music they were playing. Mostly instrumental, with the odd strong vocals accompanying, mixed with reverb and delay effects (imagine Perry Farrell’s effects laden voice singing in a lower octave over Dinosaur Jr). At one point the drummer moved to the keyboard, leaving the effects guy to take over the drumming duties. The mixture of the low set up of the drum kit and the sheer height of this man made for a funny picture, though the sound was not disrupted.



Mudhoney (“we are not ravaged by age!”) attracted a mixed crowd, thankfully though not one teenager was in sight. All the long haired to the front, the exceptionally tall to the back, and the rest leaning on the bar. Having to stand in a mosh pit that was half the size of the room taking pictures with no space to lift your arms was not my idea of a fun night, so having retreated to the back of the room I could not see much. Therefore my review is mainly about what I heard, but neither the less it was good.



The new album Under a Billion Suns is a return to old school grunge for the group, who resigned with old label Sub Pop in 2002 after a stint on Reprise Records. The tight staccato beat and chords over slightly messy but still tuneful guitar streams give Mudhoney their sound, topped of with wailing vocals, and memorable chorus’s.


I recognised tonight’s treats from the compilation album March To Fuzz, not a surprising name seeing as the band are named after a film by porn movie director Russ Meyer. ‘You Got It’, ‘Here Comes Sickness’ and final song of the night ‘Hate the Police’ ensured that Sub Pops flagship band did not disappoint. Who says that grunge is dead?

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.