Yeah, so T-Rav & I went and saw Mastodon tonight. The show was interesting for several reasons, the first of which was the location. It was at the Fine Line Music Cafe downtown. For perspective, the last time Mastodon played around was at the Myth, which holds roughly 5 times as many people as the Fine Line. And, if anything, Mastodon is more popular now.
So yeah, it was crowded.
We got to the show about a third of the way through Intronaut’s set. They seemed like an alright band. The bass player apparently played the same fretless bass that T-Rav has.
Oh, and it was fucking CROWDED.
For some reason, this bothered me more tonight than it has at other times. I mean, I’ve never been a fan of standing in a big group of sweaty dudes, but I put up with it for the sake of seeing bands play music. Tonight, it was almost intolerable. When we first got to the venue, we ended up standing next to the bar and it just so happened that the route to the bathroom passed right through where we were. So the entire time we were watching the band, we kept getting our elbows bumped by people on their way to urinate. After the first band, I suggested we move closer to the stage so we wouldn’t be in the middle of the open lane.
As it turned out, where we ended up was in the middle of the main path to get to the smoking “patio”. (Given where the Fine Line is, and that it’s not elevated off the street, I can only assume that “patio” was actually an alley). And, to make matters worse, about 5 minutes after we got to the spot, the crowd density shot up to the point where it was impossible to stand in such a way as to not be touching another person. Believe me, I tried.
We also seemed to be surrounded by the most annoying people on the planet. There was a group of five people, three girls and two guys, to my right that I found especially annoying. First of all, I kept thinking to myself that this was a metal show and what the heck were these girls doing here? (they were definitely not metal chicks; these were obvious Uptowners) Secondly, the dudes seemed to have no sense of concert etiquette whatsoever. One of the guys was standing in front of me, and while my arms (crossed over in front of me) were in physical contact with his back, he decided it would be a good idea to tilt his head backwards and look up, apparently unaware of the fact that he was in danger of breaking my nose in the process. I managed to avoid getting knocked by his noggin by moving my own head, but that no doubt put someone else in danger. He also made no attempt whatsoever to avoid leaning on me. And he wasn’t the only one! There was another guy that seemed to be deliberately leaning on me from behind for a while. And every time my head moved even slightly in his direction, he seemed to look at me expectantly. It was unnerving.
Anyway, Kylesa turned out to be pretty awesome. I had heard of them while perusing the Recommended Listening page at Questionable Content last week. I downloaded the album and liked it, and so, having recently been to two pretty cool concerts, decided to check to see if they were playing around here anytime soon. As it happened, they were playing a concert I already had a ticket too, so awesome!
One thing I missed while finding out this information was that one of the guitar players/singers is a chick, who, as it turns out, it a pretty awesome guitar player, although I was less enthused about her singing. I did not miss the fact that they have two drummers who often play in perfect unison (a fact I find a bit amazing and thoroughly awesome). And, as I alluded to earlier, they put a good show!
Unfortunately, towards the end of their set, one of the poseur indie rocker dudes who was at the show thought it would be funny to start loudly singing over the band, replacing the lyrics the with references to how they wanted to eat cupcakes. And when he got bored with that, he just started making loud and obnoxious sarcastic remarks about how the “metal” band was playing in 4/4 time. It was around this time that I started realizing that a lot of the crowd at the show was not what I would consider a normal metal crowd.
Despite any urges I may have felt, I managed to avoid smashing that guy’s face in with my fist and after Kylesa’s set, I ‘accidentally’ bumped into him, which pushed him further away into the crowd. I didn’t see him again. Gee, I hope he didn’t get hit by a bus on the way home or something awful like that.
After Kylesa’s set, I warned T-Rav that it was possible I might disappear during Mastodon’s set because I couldn’t take being compressed amongst the crowd of assholes for much longer. He understood, I think.
So, on to Mastodon.
These guys put out an album recently called Crack The Skye which, not unlike other Mastodon albums, I have been struggling to get into. It seems everytime I listen to Mastodon with the intent of finally “getting into” them, I fail miserably and end up deciding I don’t like them. But inevitably I convince myself I should like them, and so try again.
I’ve decided there are a couple reasons this keeps happening.
1 – They are an impressively talented band. And they play heavy music.
2 – Despite the heaviness of the music they play, they are not a metal band.
That second part I just figured out tonight. I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure out… well, I have an idea. The thing is, Mastodon is a progressive rock band, in much the same way that Yes and Rush are progressive rock bands. They play complicated cerebral music, often, it seems to me, just for the sake of it being complicated and cerebral.
I think the reason it took me so long to realize this is that I’m not really into progressive rock. Also, Mastodon really really sounds like metal. I mean, c’mon, they’re fucking heavy!
So anyway, I kind of figured this out about a minute into their first song. T-Rav, I believe, has the full setlist of what they played, but basically it went like this: They played the new album, in its entirety, note for note. While they were doing this, they had a big screen behind them that showed various visuals that tied into the concept of each song. I’ve been told that Crack The Skye is a concept album about Rasputin and the visuals seemed to support that.
Once they got through the album, they dug into their back catalog and played quite bit off Blood Mountain and Leviathon, and maybe two songs from Remission.
I managed to make it about two and half songs into the set before I retreated to the back of the crowd. The thing that put me over the edge was a guy in front of me in a striped button down shirt playing air guitar and bumping his elbow into my gut in the process.
When I went to the back of the crowd, I ended up by the door. One guy walked in and asked if this was the second band playing, and I informed him that no, it was Mastodon. In my head I giggled at him for not knowing that the band he came to see was on stage.
Then another guy made a comment about how he really wanted to go smoke (his only two options were to plow his way through the crowd up front to the “patio”, or go out the front door, and be out of the show for good; he didn’t seem to like the idea of either). He kept looking towards the front door and I happened to be in that line of sight. I think he noticed that he was making me nervous so he started talking about Mastodon and how awesome they were and the last time he saw them and the best metal concert ever was when Slayer played with Hatebreed and Arch Enemy in Milwaukee and did I know that Eagle’s Ballroom has EIGHT stages?!?
Yeah, he might have been on meth, I don’t know. After a couple minutes of placating nodding, I walked over to the bar away from him and ordered a beer.
I ended up staying there, watching the show and eventually T-Rav found me.
Anyway, all in all, I had a fun time. Musically, I’d say I enjoyed Kylesa a bit more than Mastodon, but I’m glad to have figured out the mystery of why I don’t “get” Mastodon. Maybe I’ll make it a project to listen to and learn about prog rock and then go back and listen to Mastodon. Heh.