metz & lightning bolt in ferndale

actually, i'm not so much into writing that narrative, right now. nothing really exciting happened, so i feel it would be disingenuous to play it up...

i almost didn't go, because i was paranoid i wouldn't get in. well, everybody has a phone, right? what i thought would happen is that i'd get there, and everybody would buy a ticket in line. to make matters worse, the bus was 40 minutes late - or to put it another way, two scheduled 53s just didn't come. this slowed the bus ride down substantially because it was packed. i felt bad for some of the people on woodward that may have been waiting an hour, only to have the bus drive by...

i'd hesitate to say the show was a double-headliner, but the opening act had it's own audience. i've seen metz before, and i thought they were overhyped. in terms of what they do, it's essentially a function of the fuzz pedal - there's really not much to it, besides the roar of beating drums and fuzzy riffs. i guess there would have been a time in the mid 90s when i would have been more excited about this, but today it just comes off as sort of middling - it doesn't have the same power as something heavier like torche (which i'm dropping because i saw them in the same bar a few weeks ago), and they don't seem to have the ability to generate hooks that the best grunge bands had. when they get noisy, there's little abstraction. the result is actually borderline boring. or, at least it is to an old pair of ears like mine. some music just has an age limit, dictated by the mainstream's tendency to limit access to more interesting music.

i'll say they had more stage presence this time. they seemed a bit more confident. but i'm not really going to play that up, because when you start getting too much confidence in this genre it inevitably turns into macho cock rock. i'm not making that accusation, at least not yet, but it's apparently the path they're heading down. that confidence came with what seemed like more conventional writing - they've tightened up, moving out of "noise-punk" and into a more commercial grunge sound.

they're not bad enough to skip in an opening band situation. but i wouldn't go out of my way to see them, or recommend them to much of anybody - except a certain type of kid, and maybe aging grunge fans.

also, the pit was borderline frat boy tackling. i kept out of it.

is there any use in reviewing lightning bolt? the show was what one would expect...

the last video was relatively useful in demonstrating what the show i saw was like, in a medium-small venue. and they played mostly new material - although a passive set of ears would be hard pressed to tell the difference. but if you don't know the band, check this out:

here's a full set from a few months later:

...& here is a short clip from the show, too:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/04/18.html

i guess the story of last night was my first mosh pit in detroit.

there's only a handful of bands i'll really actively slam dance to - and dancing is what i'm doing, in the mayhem, between rushing the stage and pushing people out of the way so i can dance more. i don't want to get in the pit when it's a lot of frat boys tackling each other, or when it's full of metalheads doing martial arts in the air or anything like that. i'm thin, and carry almost no muscle, but i'm not petite - i'm more swedish egghead than viking plunderer, but i'm pretty sturdily built and not at all easy to knock over. i can stand my ground in the most hectic of situations, and then some. but i'm still going to stay on the edge of most pits. most of the time, i'm just not really into getting into what's unfolding in front of me.

my experience has been that lightning bolt is in the group of exceptions to this - it's a mixed gender space driven by adrenaline rather than testosterone. just people having legit, clean fun. no dominance. no macho bullshit.

i've got a few bruises on my arm, but it was from staff mistaking me for somebody else and grabbing me. listen: cops are cops. they always create more problems than they solve. i'm not going to argue that security shouldn't exist at concerts, but bar staff going into the crowd like that never does anything but cause problems. the reality is that assholes get pushed out, and the response is generally proportional. the best pit police is usually the pit itself.

i'll write up something more narrated when i wake up...