Brick By Brick

Static-X 3/12/20

X ticket

I was fortunate enough to see Static-X five times in the early part of their career but the possibility of seeing them again live disappeared when Wayne Static passed away on November 1, 2014. Then in 2019 it was announced that the original members minus Wayne were getting together with a masked mystery singer/guitarist to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wisconsin Death Trip in honor of Wayne. I was conflicted about seeing this since Wayne was so unique and I was able to see the real thing so many times but then I remembered how great it was to hear STP songs live again with singers other than Scott Weiland. None of my feelings mattered since there were no San Diego dates…until the tour resumed in 2020 with San Diego as the first date.

When I started thinking about how much I love Wisconsin Death Trip and received an email from Brick By Brick announcing there were less than 50 tickets left something finally clicked in my brain and I came around. Unfortunately this being on a Thursday did not make it very easy to find anyone else willing to accompany me so I ended up going alone.

Static-X aside this was an interesting time because I had not had any weed or alcohol in over 30 days after taking a self-imposed break and because Coronavirus panic was taking hold of the world. Bands started cancelling shows and elected officials were putting orders in place to prevent gatherings of more than 250 people, then 50 people and finally 10 people. This show was in question up to the last hours before showtime. Ultimately these gathering restrictions went into place midnight of this night, making this the last show I was going to be able to attend for the foreseeable future.

After returning to my gummy taking ways I arrived at Brick By Brick with exactly enough time to grab a tall boy Modelo and situate myself at the familiar back end of the floor area before Static-X came out. The mystery man, who was later revealed to be Edsel Dope, wore a semi-creepy mask that has X’s through the eyes and on the forehead and must have not had enough time to re-create Wayne’s famous hairdo since he wore a hoodie the whole time. He did an admirable job filling in for Wayne and I thought it was pretty cool of “Xer0” to address the crowd basically saying, “I am not trying to replace anyone. I was friends with Wayne and love these songs as much as you guys so I’m thankful that you are allowing me to be a part of bringing these songs back to life for all of us to enjoy.”

It took all of two songs for them to get to the title track of Wisconsin Death Trip for me to feel really great about my decision to attend. After a fantastic “The Trance is the Motion” they hit the highlight reel of rippers from Machine then hot selections from the rest of the catalog before coming back around to “I’m With Stupid” and “Push It” and then they were gone. All in all the show was badass but they need to fire the sound guy because the performance was great but the actual sound was inconsistent.

Next up in the Static-X orbit is Project Regeneration, which will be new music featuring Wayne’s voice from recordings before his death set to be released later in 2020.

SETLIST: Bled for Days, Wisconsin Death Trip, Sweat of the Bud, Love Dump. I Am, Otsegolation, The Trance is the Motion, Get to the Gone, Black and White, This Is Not, Destroy All, Start a War, Behemoth, Cold, I’m With Stupid, Push It

Prong 5/30/19

Prong ticket

Prong is another band that Claude introduced me to back in the day. This was right about the time in 1994 they were having a moment in the spotlight thanks to their fourth album Cleansing. This album was a solid coming out party. Having Terry Date produce the album certainly did not hurt, as I was already familiar with him at this point due to his work with Soundgarden and Pantera. When I saw they were coming to Brick by Brick of course I was in.

Tommy Victor was the only one left from that lineup in 1994 but being the voice of the band he was probably the most crucial piece to still have anyway. That and he is one hell of a badass guitar player. I saw him once when he played guitar for Danzig a couple of years back so I already knew firsthand what to expect.

After taking in game one of the NBA finals with Bob, we cruised over to a very empty Brick by Brick. It seems not many people in San Diego remembered or cared about Prong any longer. It has to be very disheartening as a band to come out to a place that is only a quarter full but they came out and rocked the fuck out of us like the professional band they are as if the place was sold out. Tommy and Co. played songs mostly off their first few albums before they ripped through essentially the first half of the Cleansing album to close out the show. Just like Powerman 5000 did earlier this year at the very same venue Prong did not play the entire album they were there to celebrate but that did put a damper on this one bit.

SETLIST: Unconditional, Lost and Found, Beg to Differ, For Dear Life, Cut-Rate, Ultimate Authority, Prove You Wrong, Rude Awakening, Cut and Dry, Revenge…Best Served Cold, Test, Another Worldly Device, Broken Peace, Whose Fist Is This Anyway?, Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck, However It May End

Powerman 5000 2/15/19

PM5K ticket

So here I am going to my second concert in three days. This time was to see Powerman 5000 commemorate the 20th anniversary of the album Tonight The Stars Revolt! by performing it in its entirety. This is the album of theirs that caught my attention and still holds a special place in my musical heart so even though Spider was still the only original member left from that period playing with four randoms I did not care. On top of that I had not seen them in over five years.

After drinking a six pack of my favorite Fat Tire and eating one of Ingrid’s gummies I was off to Brick by Brick to meet up with my coworker Wayne who decided to go at the last minute. Wayne showed up less than five minutes after I did and found me at the bar trying to order a beer right as the opening band was bidding the crowd farewell. We had just enough time to get a tallboy PBR, make our way to the bathroom and secure a spot at the back edge of the soon-to-be mosh pit before Powerman came on. I don’t actually like PBR, I just think it’s funny to drink a tallboy PBR.

Long story short the band did not play the album as expected/advertised but instead played a lot of other stuff that was not on Tonight The Stars Revolt! The fuckers tricked me. They made me think that they would be playing all if not most of the Tonight the Stars Revolt! album but instead for all intents and purposes played three songs from the album. Fuckers. To make matters even more confusing they decided to play covers of “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes instead of “Good Times Roll,” which is the only cover song on the album they were supposed to play. You’re doing shows to commemorate an album but then spend less than 25% of the show actually playing songs from the album?

Overall it was still a pretty awesome show. This was the kind of performance that translated to a small club but probably would not have fared well with the stadium crowd. Brick by Brick is the perfect sized gritty rock joint with leaking roof and all that captures the energy in such a way to make you feel as though there are far more people in attendance. I enjoyed “Bombshell” and “Supernova Goes Pop” the most but am still really bummed they did not play “Operate Annihilate.” At the end of the day I just think they missed a huge opportunity to reintroduce this badass album to people.

SETLIST: Nobody’s Real, Invade, Destroy, Repeat, Hey, That’s Right!, Super Villain, Footsteps and Voices, Relax, How to Be a Human, Horror Show, Bombshell, An Eye Is Upon You, Supernova Goes Pop, Sid Vicious in a Dress, When Worlds Collide

Corrosion of Conformity 1/26/19

COCatBrickByBrick

This was only my third time seeing Corrosion of Conformity and I had not seen them since Blackest of the Black in May of 2017, which was before the release of their latest album No Cross No Crown almost exactly a year before this show.

I never really listened to enough Crowbar to get into them but wanted to show up a little early to check them out simply based on the Jimmy Bower/Kirk Windstein connection from the band Down. Unfortunately I could not recruit anyone to go with me once again so I flew solo to Brick By Brick after downing some Fat Tire. When I arrived there were a handful of people hanging out near the entrance and as I walked closer I realized the person I was about to pass was Pepper Keenan. He turned and looked at me so I said “Oh Fuck Yeah” and we fist bumped.

I had not been to Brick By Brick for some time so I forgot how small that place is. It only holds about 400 people. Once inside I grabbed a tallboy PBR and watched the remainder of Crowbar’s set. I also ingested the two gummy edibles I brought with me in hopes of timing the onset to coincide with COC’s set. Crowbar had some good grooves but I just did not know the songs.

After I had secured another tallboy ZZ Top’s “La Grange” started making it’s way out of the speakers to signify the end of the intermission. This is a fantastic song to take the stage to. As I looked around the room everyone seemed to be in agreement. COC opened with “Stone Breakers” and from then on it was an all-out onslaught of sludgy metal at it’s finest. I don’t remember exactly what else they played but I do know they played “Wiseblood,” “Wolf Named Crow,” Long Whip/Big America,” “Seven Days,” “Albatross” and closed with “Clean My Wounds.” Rocked my socks off. As I left the venue to walk to a spot to request a Lyft I realized that I was unknowingly following Pepper Keenan as he was walking back to his bus. Once I realized this I turned the other direction thinking that if he turned around and saw “this guy” again he might of thought I was stalking him. Then again that was probably just the gummies.