Melvins
July 17, 2015
Summit Music Hall, Denver, CO
To the sludgy strains of Black Sabbath's “Sweet Leaf” strode the band known as much for their droll doom-punk as for giving a young Aberdeen, WA kid named Kurt Cobain a job lugging their equipment. Blasting another band's song as your entrance music may seem unusual, but such behavior is de rigeur for the Melvins, who played a packed house at the Summit Music Hall in Denver. Singer and guitarist King Buzzo, donning a priestly robe bedecked by giant eyeballs, howled and growled into the microphone for much of the evening. His frizzled 'fro, fully grayed and reminiscent of Sideshow Bob's towering coif, bounced along with the beats.
That is, when he was not bebopping to a cover of “Moving to Florida” by fellow Alternative Nation cornerstones, the Butthole Surfers. Speaking of which, former Butthole Surfer Jeff Pinkus filled in as bassist and held down the rhythm section with precision. But it was Melvins drummer Dale Crover who shredded the skins like a madman and diluted the thick-as-molasses riffing with rapid-fire pounding.
For a final act, they invited Teri Gender Bender of lo-fi openers Le Butcherettes, with whom the band recently released a split EP entitled Chaos as Usual, to sing renditions of tunes by Pop-O-Pies and Bikini Kill. In a crimson cape and gown with red makeup splashed across her mouth as if she had taken lipstick application lessons from the Joker, Ms. Gender Bender barked the lyrics while simultaneously swaying to the music. Upon that crescendo, the Melvins concluded their set, briefly flirting an encore that would never come. This evening, the grunge forebears showed why they have outlasted most of their Seattle scene contemporaries and have continued to make waves in punk and metal for over three decades.
Article By: Steve Lustig
