Bonnaroo 2008

After around 1600 miles, twenty or so bands, a half dozen fajitas and a week off of work, the Bonnaroo 2008 excursion is complete.  While I would really like to go on and on with details, something should be published in one of my affiliated publications within the next few months.  Between that and me still being exhausted from the four hours of nightly sleep that kept me going down in Tennessee, these photos are as much of an update as you are going to get for now.  I will make a “best of” Bonnaroo gallery later, but in the meantime…

Brian Posehn
Chris Rock
Les Claypool
Israel Vibrations
Jim Norton
Metallica
MGMT
Pearl Jam
SuperDrag
Superjam ‘08 (Gogol Bordello w/ Les Claypool)
Zach Galifinakis

Of course, all of these can be viewed from the main photo directory here.

Going to see Sloan tonight. Update tomorrow?

Mudhoney – 6/4/08 Buffalo

Grunge, Take Two – Mudhoney at Mohawk Place

Mark Arm of Mudhoney – June 4th, 2008 – Mohawk Place, Buffalo, NY.

Provided by: 2008 Andrew Blake apblake.com

Contributed by: buffalo.com/yourhub Andrew Blake on 6/6/2008

“You’ve yet to hear us, you know,” warned Mark Arm. The singer had just taken to the stage at Buffalo’s Mohawk Place, and even though Arm, or for that matter anyone else from his band had yet to belt out a note, hundreds piled on their neighbors to get as close to the stage as possible. After all, this was the group that paved the way for Nirvana and Soundgarden, so what difference did it make if they didn’t play a note yet?

The band is Mudhoney, and though they never quite sold as many records as Kurt Cobain or Chris Cornell, the venerable Seattle grunge outfit influenced a generation of flannel-wearing rockers in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Though it’s been twenty years since their first release, and the decades of tours and records had clearly taken a toll on the angry, not-so-young rockstars, Arm and company proved a packed house at Mohawk Place on Wednesday that being young at heart was good enough.

The driving bass of “The Money Will Roll Right In” introduced an hour and a half set by the group, which never lagged, not even for a moment. While the genre they championed two decades ago has lost the appeal it had during its heyday to many, those at Mohawk, adorned in ripped jeans and t-shirts, never lost faith in the post-garage rock distorted guitars that sounded as the anthem for their generation.

Some, too young to catch Mudhoney twenty years earlier, head-banged stage-side in t-shirts of their idols’ contemporaries. Tad and Green River, who originated out of the same Seattle scene in the late ’80s, were just a few of the groups depicted across the chests of the dozens of teenagers who hugged the stage. Even if they were too young to appreciate the grunge movement the first time around, the timeless punk restlessness of these groups are clearly receiving appreciation from a new audience.

While Nirvana took the path to media stardom thanks to an array of radio-friendly hits, Mudhoneys tunes, while equally catchy, never received the same attention. The redundant surf-rock bass lines of songs like “No One Has” were hypnotic enough to get the crowd mindlessly pogo-ing, but it was the screeching feedback of guitarist Steve Turner that reminded the crowd what kind of band they were here to see, and also, to remember their earplugs next time.

When Arm picked up a silver-speckled Gretsch guitar, he barely forfeited the outrageous on-stage-persona he introduced earlier in the set, and even with his instrument slung over his shoulder, continued to tip-toe across the stage, screaming lyric after lyric.

“He’s like a baby Iggy,” the woman next to me remarked, comparing Arm to the infamous Stooges frontman. While the comparisons certainly do add up, from the veins on the forehead to the belted croon style of singing, it’s a little too late in the game to call Arm a baby anything.

Nonetheless, Mudhoney proved that despite their age, they still have the energy. In the three minutes apiece it took to blast through “Touch Me, I’m Sick” or The Dicks’ “Hate the Police,” it felt like the energy (and skyrocketing decibels) managed to age everyone a few years. And frankly, it was worth it.

-Andrew Blake

More photos to come, uh…sometime after Bonnaroo.

Bonnaroo, Day 1

Goddamn!

Been packing and gearing up since 8am.  It is just short of noon and we are almost all set to make our way down to Manchester.  Gotta pick up a few more supplies and we should be on the 90 within a hour.

This is going to be a long day.