Live Stream!!!

 

This weekend my writer’s block was cured, but on Saturday, meaning I missed my (self-imposed) Friday deadline.  As before, I remain incredulous that my weekly ramblings suffice to engender anyone else’s attention, but since they do, I’m happy to continue, to the extent I can come up with anything remotely worth discussing.

By now we’re all painfully aware of the COVID crisis and how it has made a major impact in our lives.  For those of us who enjoy live music, that’s been even worse.

2020 Shows.  2019 was capped off with Clutch’s late December show at the 9:30 Club in DC.  2020 was ushered in by Church of Misery, a Japanese stoner rock band, at the Rock’n’Roll Hotel in DC – up there on U Street, a few blocks due east of Union Station.  Next up was UFO – the British band famous for Michael Schenker, “Doctor Doctor” and ‘Rock Bottom” – who I enjoyed at the Tally Ho in Leesburg, Virginia, with my brother, Matt.  Then was Opeth (as mentioned last week), at the Fillmore Silver Spring, in Silver Spring, Maryland, also with Matt – and it was his first Opeth show.  Finally OM – Sleep bassist Al Cisneros’ side band, very much drone-y like SunnO))) – at the Black Cat, right on Fourteenth Street in DC.   

Then the manure hit the oscillating climate control device.

Here are the shows we had tickets to see, and which were cancelled due to the COVID shitshow. 

TOOL, 4/24/20 at Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.

Fu Manchu, 5/6/20 at the Baltimore Soundstage in Baltimore, Maryland. 

King Buffalo, 6/27/20 at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.

King Crimson, 6/30/20 at Wolf Trap, Vienna, Virginia. 

Guns N’Roses, 7/16/20 at Nationals Park in DC.

All Them Witches (ATW), 7/22/20 at the Otto Bar in Baltimore, Maryland.

Roger Waters, 7/30/20, at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC

Dead & Company, 8/5/20 at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia – with my former boss, Jerry, who hadn’t seen the Dead since …maybe before 1986. 

Judas Priest, 9/9/20 at the MGM Grand in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Elder, 11/13/20 at the Richmond Music Hall down in Richmond, Virginia.

As you can see, it was some pretty big shows.  Fortunately Bobby Weir, Fripp, Maynard, Halford, Waters, Axl & Slash, are all still alive – Maynard surviving COVID – so hopefully those shows will be back online in 2021 after we get a vaccine that works.  My concern is that if the virus mutates to make the vaccine ineffective, and continues to mutate, we may be looking at a scenario where COVID is effectively permanent.  But let’s hope and pray that this vaccine gets the job done.

Fortunately, despite all this, some bands realized that this Internet thing could let them play a live show and stream it online.  And yes, that has happened.  Here are the live streaming shows I’ve seen so far:

Clutch, 5/27/2020.  Their first live streaming show, called “Doom Saloon”.  An hour, well done.  From Maryland, this band is mostly straightforward rock’n’roll, though the lyrics are somewhat offbeat, and bassist Dan Maines gives a bit a funk step, mixing it up a bit.  Moreover, the band has kept the same lineup all this time:  singer Neil Fallon, guitarist Tim Sult, and drummer Jean-Paul Galter.  If you haven’t heard them already, by all means check them out on Spotify. 

Clutch, 8/7/2020.  Their second show, called “Doom Saloon 2”.  They solicited proposed setlists from the fans and picked one to do.  This setlist had a fair amount of deep cuts.  They also sold T-shirts and recorded the show onto vinyl.

DOWN, 8/29/20.  This is the “supergroup” with Pantera’s Phil Anselmo on vocals, Corrosion of Conformity’s Pepper Keenan on guitar, Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein on guitar, and Pantera’s Rex Brown on bass.  I think the drummer was from Crowbar.  They played their first album, NOLA, in its entirety.  Despite liking DOWN and having all three studio albums, both EPs, and their live album, I had somehow never managed to see them in concert – until now.  They sold t-shirts of the event. 

Crowbar and the Obsessed, 10/3/20.  Crowbar is a thrash band from New Orleans, and the Obsessed features Maryland’s own stoner doom god, Scott “Wino” Weinrich.  This time around he was doing an acoustic set.  Of all these shows, this was my last favorite.

Earthless, 10/17 and 10/24/20.   This is another psychedelic band that does long, extended jams.  Both shows were fine, with different setlists.

Alice in Chains.  On 12/1/20 the Museum of Pop in Seattle, Washington, saw fit to pay tribute to the Seattle grunge band and its late singer, Layne Staley, with a free tribute show of various bands, including Metallica and Mastodon.  The material also covered some later Duvall-era tracks.  The performances were live and streamed in from various sources, all four members of Metallica performing "Would" from separate locations.  

Clutch, 12/18/20.   “Doom Saloon 3”.  Nominally this was supposed to start at 8, but from 8 to 9 what we got was the guys reminiscing over footage of them opening for other bands back in the day, and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster giving us a tour of their home base somewhere in Maryland.  Wagon wheel chandeliers will be sold out now, thanks to him.  The set itself was culled from the most requested songs in all those fan-profferred setlists which weren’t chosen for Doom Saloon 2.   This elicited some displeasure at the absence of deep cuts and obscure tunes, as if the band has some duty to play these songs to the exclusion of fan favorites just so the Old Guard can smugly remark that they recognize tracks which the main base of fans don’t.   Yes, that means don’t hold your breath to hear “Binge & Purge”. 

All Them Witches, 12/19, 2 p.m. and 9 p.m.  The two sets were different, but not completely so – about 70% of the material was the same, 30% different.  The combo pack includes a t-shirt, but no actual recording.  ATW do a good job of mixing TOOL and the Grateful Dead, if you can imagine that.  They don’t sound like anyone else, itself a miracle these days.  They’re from Nashville, Tennessee. 

in January there will be a full series of concerts out in the Mohave Desert:  Earthless (1/23), Nebula (2/6), Spirit Mother (2/20), Mountain Tamer (3/6), and Stoner (how’s that for subtle?) a band put together by none other than Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri.  We’ll see how that goes.  

Benefits.   Most of us prefer live shows, in person, but these live streaming shows do have some major advantages over shows on location.

Logistics.  No driving to DC, Baltimore, or wherever, trying to find parking, then driving back at 1 a.m.  Just turn on your computer and watch (assuming you have an Internet connection); so far all seemed to fit well within my bandwidth.  From the privacy of your own home, you can attend the show wearing as much or as little as you like, and as inebriated or otherwise chemically altered as you see fit, without the issue of how you’re supposed to get home in that condition.  When the show is over, just crash in bed – if that’s your inclination.

No Crowds.  No moshing.  None of this BS where the tallest guy in the club decides to stand front center and block everyone else’s view.  No asshole screaming at Phil Mogg to play “ROCK BOTTOM!!!” through the entire set.  And I’ve yet to see a live stream show sell out.  Mind you, as you can see above, the big shows which would have been at arenas and stadiums haven’t made their way to streaming.

Recordings.  As yet, only Clutch seems to be actually recording these shows, though only on vinyl.  Metallica and Dead & Company are the two current bands (along with Phish and Widespread Panic) who seem to be recording all their latest shows – not just one per tour – and making them available on MP3 or CD. 

If you haven’t already, I would strongly recommend determining which, if any, of your favorite bands have gotten the memo and are live streaming upcoming shows.  Not really a substitute for real shows, but better than spending an hour to ninety minutes surfing Amazon or Facebook.