They are. Different, I mean. From…everything.
This was at least my 8th time seeing them. I say “at least” because I don’t remember how many times I saw them as a teenager in Seattle. At least once but probably more. I took Nathaniel and Dillon, and also a new show buddy I’ve met, Meg. She works at my husband’s company. She’s young and into all kinds of music and totally willing to go to shows with me whenever. I love it. I have friends that will sometimes go to shows with me, but they’re not very into music, and it’s hard for some of them to be out late, they have small children. And a lot of the shows I go to, I’d feel bad dragging them along—they just wouldn’t enjoy it. But Meg’s up for anything.
We got to the Troubadour pretty early because I know Melvins fans. They are die hard. And I wanted a stage spot. We ended up getting there even earlier than I meant to, and I felt a little stupid, until I saw that there was already a line forming. By the time they let us in, it was the longest line I’ve ever seen at a Troubadour show. And they were playing two nights, Friday and Saturday—we went to the Friday show.
I checked out the line for anyone I knew when we first arrived and immediately spotted two. One is a guy I know from Facebook, I see him at shows occasionally–mostly Melvins shows, I think. He’s a cool guy. Another was a kid Nathaniel, Dillon and I have seen at different shows. He’s the lurker who always shows up in my pictures! (You can see him here and here, and here he is at this show.)
First band to play was a band I’ve seen before called Porn. They’re different now—Coady and Dale, both drummers in the Melvins (yeah they have two drummers), played drums. Tim Moss played guitar and made a bunch of noises with some kind of other equipment, and another guy played a toy keyboard hooked up to a bunch of effects pedals. They didn’t play that long.
Then Big Business played, and the guy who played the toy keyboard for Porn played guitar. Jared on bass/vocals (he also plays bass and sings in the Melvins), and Coady on drums. So Coady was on stage for all three bands’ sets. I’ve seen other Melvins shows where it was Dale on stage all night, either playing drums or guitar in different bands.
I like Big Business with a guitar. I like them without a guitar, too, though. Since the songs were written without one, the songs are very bass-oriented, and I like that. Jared is funny, too. At one point he said there was something near him that smelled good. My Facebook friend Will raised his hand to indicate that it was him. Jared told the guy behind him to smell his hair and verify that it was actually Will that smelled good, but the guy wouldn’t do it. Jared said, “Come on. Are we not all adults here?” Then he leaned down, grabbed Will’s head, and buried his nose in his hair. He said, “That is the best smelling-hair in L.A.” (or something like that).
I thought maybe Big Business wouldn’t even bother leaving the stage and the Melvins would just come out, but they left for a few minutes while the guitarist removed his equipment.
I was standing directly in front of Buzzo.
The coolest hair in all of rock, and possibly the world. It looks like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.
Nathaniel and Dillon were standing a couple people away from me, around the side of the stage.
Buzzo kept stepping away from the mic and playing right in their faces. He’d look right at them, it seemed at times like he was glaring at them. He can be really intimidating, like he might be mean, but he’s actually just really goofy. I met a guy at a Melvins show once who had done an interview with them, and when he met Buzzo, Buzzo had cracked some joke. The guy said, “Oh, you’re a comedian?” And Buzzo, referring to the set they’d just played, said, “Yeah, what do you think that was?”
The Melvins typically wear goofy outfits on stage. Buzzo usually wears a long dresslike garment. It used to be a black one with a big red cross on it. Now it’s one with nurses all over it.
Jared wore a wig, and fringe leather vest, and a scarf. I think he was going for a hippy look, but I couldn’t tell exactly.
Meg and I definitely had the best vantage point in the place—we could see both drummers really well. It’s interesting to watch them play, to see the cues they give each other. Coady really has to watch Dale carefully. It must be really challenging and fun for them to play together like that. It’s amazing how in sync they were.
Dale’s daughter was there, she looked like she was about three. He let her come out and play his drums in between bands, it was really cute, and everyone was cheering and clapping for her.
The setlist:
That paper was actually facing away from me, and I flipped the picture in Photoshop so it’s readable. At the show I couldn’t quite make out a lot of it, but I did managed to see “Revolve” on there, and I was anticipating it all night. Only my favorite Melvins song ever:
They did mostly new material, stuff from the last two albums. Which was fine by me: I love the two recent albums. They did “A History of Bad Men,” one of my faves, and then segued right into the Star Spangled Banner. Somehow it’s not something I’d expect the Melvins to do. I got it all on video, too.
The Banner begins at about 5:35. I love how they harmonized.
During the last song, Jared took a mic out into the crowd. He was singing, well mostly just making noises, and wandered through the crowd, sometimes on the floor. I couldn’t actually see a lot of what he was doing, but tried to get video of it. At the end he got back up on the stage, then climbed on their roadie’s back for a piggyback ride. Video:
After that, the band all left the stage except for Buzzo, who sang a Merle Haggard song, “Okie From Muskogee.” In the video above, it starts at about the 6:00 mark.
It was an awesome show.












