Corrosion Of Conformity, ASG, Royal Thunder, Gritter, Uncle Jimmy
Wednesday, November 7 at Kingdom
It feels strange to say this, especially in light of how long it's been since the changeover occurred, but this was actually my first trip to Kingdom since its previous incarnation as Alleykatz. I guess I don't get out much. It's pretty much the same as it was before, at least in appearance. I do wish they'd fix the door on the men's room--I've been going to this venue for over a decade and it's never really worked right. But hey, after a while, you start to expect the bathrooms in rock clubs to be kind of sketchy, so I guess it's not really a big deal.
I got to the show reasonably early, but I still managed to walk in while a band was playing. However, it was one of two bands that hadn't been listed on most of the advance promotional info about this show that I saw. This is one quirk of Kingdom's management that I'm not too sure about--deliberately not listing small local opening bands on the bill for shows. It gets particularly weird when some out of town band is playing and they're the only band listed as playing--you know there'll be openers, but you have no idea who they're going to be. Which leads everybody to assume they'll all be crappy and show up late. Considering these bands are almost certainly paying to play, I suppose it's a winning strategy for Kingdom, but I have to wonder if it benefits anyone else. The bands play for a crowd that didn't expect them and therefore has a grudge against them already for showing up, and people start learning that if they want to go to a show at Kingdom, they better show up late to avoid any unlisted local bands who might have been added to the bill--so sooner or later, these bands end up in a situation where they're playing to almost nobody. And since they're not listed on flyers, they can't even build up a fanbase that starts to show up to see them (assuming they're even able to win anyone over in the first place, and the odds are against them on that). I guess if bands are willing to pay, Kingdom will keep letting them play, but again, I'm not sure who this benefits.
The specific band paying to play unannounced in this case was called Uncle Jimmy, and I caught their last two songs. They were doing a midtempo mosh thing, which is always tough to pull off--between the lack of significant tempo changes and the fact that it's just harder to generate intensity at a medium tempo than at a fast or slow tempo, you run a high risk of ending up with a monotonous musical mush. That was sort of happening to Uncle Jimmy, but with a weird complicating factor stemming from the fact that they had two guitarists and no bass player. For a heavy band, this sort of lineup is not necessarily a killer--after all, Zao made their brilliant LP Where Blood And Fire Bring Rest with that exact lineup--but you've got to set your amps and effects in the proper way to fill up the low-end space normally taken up by bass. Uncle Jimmy didn't really do this--their guitarists both used a pretty standard sound and just left a gaping hole in the low end of their sound mix. Then, on their last song, there was a significant period where both guitarists started doing two-hand fingertap guitar solos at the same time. It might have been an impressive display of talent if it weren't for the fact that it left the drummer trying to keep the riff going by himself. Instead, it was just ridiculous. Two different, not-that-connected versions of "widdla widdla widdla" while the drummer played a mosh beat by himself. The song begged for cohesion, and it didn't get it. These guys really need a bass player.
Photo by Erik Svensson
OK, on to the bands I was expecting on this bill. I haven't seen Gritter in a while, and they've added a new rhythm section since then, including Kevin White, formerly of Cloud 13 (if anyone else remembers them), on drums. The new lineup sounded great, and had some serious Pantera-style swamp mosh going on. They're apparently just about to put out a new record, and I dug the new material they played during their set. At times it also felt a little too midtempo--I would have liked to see a few more fast parts. But singer Ryan Kent has gotten away from messing around with clean vocals, which I never thought was his strength, so overall I saw a big improvement in what they're doing from the last time I caught them live (which was at the Triple, so it's been a while. Again, I guess I don't go out much). There's a bit of Lamb Of God in the riffing that I didn't notice before, but it's no surprise that the local influences are rubbing off, and it seems to work well for Gritter, so no complaints here. I hope I catch these guys again soon.
Photo by Grooverock Photography
Royal Thunder were the first of three touring bands, and I was really excited to see them live. Singer/bassist Mlny Parsonz is the big attraction in this stoner-metal band, with her Janis Joplin-style soulful vocals. It's always a concern when you go see a band whose singer sounds really great in the studio--what if they can't pull it off live? Well, anyone afraid of that problem with Royal Thunder had their fears put to rest the second they led off their set with "Parsonz Curse." Mlny's voice was if anything better in the live environment, and she spent the whole set wailing loud and strong. Royal Thunder seemed like the only band on the tour that didn't have a fanbase contingent in the house, but they grabbed a lot of people's attention with their powerful set. Their retro-stoner sound fluctuates a bit, from straight-up Sabbath-isms to more of an 80s power-metal/doom hybrid, and their final song, "Blue," showcased their prog side in a lengthy epic that at times almost reminded me of Isis. Royal Thunder did a good job of demonstrating their ability to play in a classic metal style without becoming one-dimensional or cliched, and delivered a standout set that totally lived up to my expectations.
I didn't know what to expect from ASG, a band that, despite their significant career, I'd never heard before this show. However, a bunch of my friends that I ran into at the show were clearly excited to see them, and once they started playing, I could tell why. ASG's sound, at least in the live environment, had some stoner-ish tendencies, but tended to drift towards the Torche/Fu Manchu end of that spectrum, where what bands are really doing most of the time is playing hard-rock anthems with catchy melodies hidden just underneath their fuzzed-out riffs. Bands can take this sound too far and end up with hybrid sounds that owe a little too much to 80s butt-rock (that's how I feel about most of what I've heard by Fu Manchu, actually), but ASG kept things on the good side of that particular line, delivering a set of anthems that would have sounded great blasting out of a souped-up Camaro. They rocked hard and played a crowd-pleasing set that seemed, from the reactions they got, to feature a lot of the songs that the fans in the house wanted to hear, and all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them.
Photo by Chris Gormley
Corrosion Of Conformity was the band I was really waiting for, though. I've always been a huge fan of their early hardcore albums, especially from the two-year period in which they were a three-piece with bassist Mike Dean doing lead vocals. Since 2010, they've been back together in this three-piece lineup, and they released a new LP that is closer to the sound they had on 1985's Animosity than anything they've done since. I expected a lot of punks and hardcore kids to rejoice at the return of the "real" COC, but it hasn't really happened--it seems that they spent so long as a stoner-metal band fronted by Pepper Keenan, who was the band's rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist from 1991 until 2006, that most people these days who know COC at all know that version of the band exclusively. At the Kingdom show, there were a few older punks in the house, many even older than me, who seemed to be there for the version of the band that was actually performing. But most of the people who gathered up front in eager anticipation of COC's set were clearly fans of the Pepper Keenan era, who may not have known quite what they were getting into. After opening with "Psychic Vampire," a slower song from their latest album that still shows a good bit of the swampy, stoner-ish style that COC explored during the Keenan era, the band slammed straight into the first three songs from Animosity, delivering all of them with full energy and not so much as a one-second pause between. They hit all of these songs every bit as hard as they had back in the mid-80s (according to video evidence), and carried on from there with a solid mix of faster songs from the new self-titled album and tracks from the current lineup's original mid-80s incarnation.
This threw many of the fans in attendance for a bit of a loop, and during one infrequent pause in their set, a bunch of requests were called out for Pepper-era songs--none of which, of course, were honored. However, when the band made their one diversion into the Pepper era, performing the title track from 1994's Deliverance (one of the only songs from that era that originally featured Mike Dean on lead vocals), they got the biggest response of the entire night. I myself was more stoked about the alternation between modern tracks like the blistering "Leeches" and chugging "The Moneychangers," and mid-80s favorites like "Holier." In fact, COC ended their set with the one-two punch of what just happen to be my two favorite COC songs ever--"Hungry Child" and "Technocracy." This was definitely my favorite part, but really, the entire set was excellent, and it's clear that, unlike a lot of bands entering their fourth decade together, the members of COC are still really happy to be playing together. Guitarist Woody Weatherman had a huge grin on his face throughout their set, and kept making wizard-like gestures at his guitar during particularly dramatic sustained notes. Meanwhile, Mike Dean performed with a barely-contained intensity, attacking his bass with fury and knocking the mic stand around as he yowled and screamed in his still-unmistakable vocal style. I stood in the front row rocking out like an idiot throughout, headbanging, punching the monitors, and giving myself a huge bruise that made it difficult to write for the next few days. But it was worth it.
Photo by Jammi York
The only thing that was a bummer about this show was how few people got to see it happen. Perhaps it's because people saw COC at Best Friends Day last year and weren't as excited about catching them again, or because Kingdom is in Shockoe Bottom and people don't want to make the trip down. Or maybe it's even that too many people now identify COC with Deliverance more than Animosity, and therefore don't know what they'll get if they go see them now. Regardless, the fact that Kingdom was only half-filled for this show is a real shame. Any of the touring bands on this bill would be worth the price of admission on their own, and everyone reading this who thought about going to this show but ended up not doing it should be kicking themselves right now. Next time COC, ASG, or Royal Thunder comes through town, do yourself a favor and go see them.