This was the third livestream of the evening for me but by the time I tuned in an hour deep I was just able to catch the ending of “Cali Soca,” “Dancehall” and “Livin’ N’ Rockin’” before this stream was over. 311 gives the ability to watch the stream for 72 hours after the original broadcast but I had never watched their streams anything other than live so had no idea that the streams are only re-broadcast at certain times until I tried to watch from the beginning later in the night. During the second attempt I happened to tune in as they were beginning “Leaving Babylon” so I got that song, “Mindspin” and the full “Cali Soca” before I was caught up to my original viewing.
It is said that the third time is a charm and this third attempt at viewing the stream finally allowed a successful viewing of the entire thing. After watching the last couple of pre-recorded streams I really appreciated the live aspect of this one.
After an hour of interviews about the album, that heavy riff in “Freeze Time” I love so much started things out. It was hard to not notice how much fun the band seemed to be having a during “Come Original.” One of my favorites on the album, “Flowing,” was also unsurprisingly one of my favorites of the whole performance. 311 always brings it and this stream was no exception.
SETLIST: Freeze Time, Come Original, Large in the Margin, Flowing, Can’t Fade Me, Life’s Not a Race, Strong All Along, Sever, Eons, Evolution, Leaving Babylon, Mindspin, Seal the Deal, Cali Soca, Dancehall, Livin’ N’ Rockin’
Weezer and 311 both decided to have separate streams starting at the exact same time on this Friday evening. Having seen three out of the last four 311 streams I decided to go with Weezer and watch the 311 stream sometime in the 72 hour window given to re-watch.
Weezer’s newest offering OK Human is an ambitious album that combines the Weezer we all know and love with a 38-piece orchestra. If this album were a beer it would be called Weezer Lite and the stream felt like a cross between Metallica S&M and Unplugged. The performance was true to the album as the band rolled through the entire thing front to back in sequence with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra but then after “Hero” from the yet to be released next album Van Weezer the real fun began.
Rivers, looking like a sophisticated lady with a mustache, finally relieved himself of piano duties for a completely acoustic solo version of “Say It Ain’t So.” This was really special because it highlighted just how strong the song is to be able to stand on its own in such a stripped down format. “Island In the Sun” got everyone involved and this was followed by what I feel to be rare performance of any song from Pinkerton “Falling For You.” The faithful reproduction of vocal harmonies during “Africa” left me with a very satisfied feeling as did the orchestra taking over the guitar solo parts during “Buddy Holly” to close out the stream.
The cut to different exterior shots of the Walt Disney Concert Hall between each song clued me into the fact this was another pre-recorded stream. This stream was over after exactly one hour and I knew 311 would still be going so I switched to their stream. In hindsight this made me wish I had just watched the 311 stream live and watched the Weezer stream later but it turns out I did the right thing as the Weezer stream did not come with any re-watching capability like most all the other streams have given the ability to do.
SETLIST: All My Favorite Songs, Aloo Gobi, Grapes of Wrath, Numbers, Playing My Piano, Mirror Image, Screens, Bird With a Broken Wing, Dead Roses, Everything Happens for a Reason, Here Comes the Rain, La Brea Tar Pits, Hero, Say It Ain’t So, Island in the Sun, Falling For You, Africa, Buddy Holly
I saw Adema once back in 2002 at a tiny place in Portland due to my love of their first album. Singer Mark Chavez decided to bail after two albums and with that my interest in Adema waned. It had waned so much that I did not realize they continued on with multiple singers after Chavez’s departure. Not knowing about other singers and a misleading email from Bandsintown left me incorrectly thinking this stream was going to be a reunion with Chavez so I purchased it. When the band began the stream with “Unstable” I thought the singer kind of looked different but I had not seen them forever so I went with it but then he sounded different once he started singing. Then I realized it was Ryan Shuck, who used to be one of the guitarists in Orgy. This guy did great but is a more polished singer, which didn’t work as well for the songs as the grittiness that the original singer had. Disappointing to say the least but I paid for it and like the songs so I decided to stick around.
This was the first of three streams I was interested in to be broadcast this evening so I initially went into it not knowing if this one would finish before the next two started at 6 pm. The singer change and screen fade out between songs confirming my suspicions that this stream was pre-recorded instead of live made for an easy decision to watch the Weezer stream live if this Adema stream was to run over. The stream only lasted 45 minutes so this turned out to be a non-issue anyways. The band sounded great and it was good to hear the songs again but the change in vocals just threw it off to much for my personal tastes.
SETLIST: Unstable, Close Friends, Everyone, Do What You Want To Do, Ready to Die, Immortal, Codependent, Freaking Out, The Way You Like It, Trust, Giving In
Anyone who knows me knows Pantera holds a special place in my heart that taps into something very primal. When it was announced the Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals would be doing a stream of nothing but Pantera songs dubbed “A Vulgar Display of Pantera” it was a no-brainer. I have seen Phil and Co. twice now in person and the last time at Aftershock was also a set of only Pantera songs.
I could have swore I saw something that said King Parrot would start at 4 pm PST and Phil would go on at 5 PST but alas when I logged in at 4 pm instead of King Parrot I got a slowed down shot of a hog and two chickens in a coop. After about 15 minutes the feed switched to footage of Phil with the Illegals doing “Utopian” from a past show, which started off a montage of general tomfoolery from previous shows/tours. This assortment of footage concluded with a full performance of “Photographic Taunts” from the Lair and that cut straight into the opening act King Parrot.
Despite my best efforts to familiarize myself with King Parrot beforehand I just never made the time. This being said I cannot give a great assessment but I can say they were not terrible or great. They were allotted about 20 minutes and then it was on to the main presentation.
The switch from King Parrot to Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals was fraught with technical difficulties. At first there were spotty visuals and then finally the audio kicked in to reveal the band opening with “Suicide Note Part I.” By the time the feed evened out the band was fairly deep into the song, which I was ready to forget all about when I thought they might go right into “Suicide Note Part II” like the album but no dice. It was a very blue balls way to start off the show and left me feeling the same way I feel when I hear “We Will Rock You” without hearing “We Are the Champions” right behind it.
This blue ball feeling quickly melted away once “A New Level” began. The band was on but Phil was fucking lost from the start so he stopped the band and had them start over. The sound guy was still trying to recover from whatever caused the troubles because it would get quieter then louder but this did not slow the forward momentum down one bit.
During “Mouth For War” I realized Phil was barefoot rocking “Classic Not Classy” on the back of his sleeveless t-shirt. There is something to be said about being comfortable. This was followed by “Becoming” with the ending of “Throes of Rejection” tacked on. One of my favorites from Reinventing The Steel “We’ll Grind That Axe For A Long Time” was up next, which is when I finally put the pieces together that they were doing an actual concert somewhere with a lessened capacity. That somewhere ended up being The Fillmore in New Orleans for 50 people. Those lucky 50 people were then treated to “Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit” and “Fucking Hostile.”
Before playing “War Nerve” Phil professed that he had never played it with the Illegals and that it was one of his and Dimebag’s favorite songs on the album. I especially got a kick out of “Nice Phil” before he got to the part where he screamed “fuck you all.” “This Love” was nicely done with the help of backup singer Calvin from En Minor.
“I’m Broken” with the ending of “By Demons Be Driven” was followed by a comment of “I’m Sloppy” and an apology saying they were sloppy from not playing live for a year. Whatever perceived sloppiness that existed was erased with a rousing version of “Strength Beyond Strength” nicely merged with the ending of “Goddamn Electric” and ending of “Suicide Note Part II.”
It was here the band took a short intermission for some “unfinished business,” which ended up being a Dime & Vinnie Tribute as the breakdown of “Living Through Me (Hells’ Wrath)” played underneath. They came out of the break with Suicide Note Part I , Part Deux to make up for the botched beginning of the stream. “Hellbound” was followed by “Domination” and “Hollow” right where it gets heavy. Crowd pleaser “Walk” was done with a little boy named Roman, which made it even more of a crowd pleaser and then the end of “(Reprise) Sandblasted Skin” concluded the stream.
Altogether this stream got me into it and gave me a taste of the concerts I’ve been missing so dearly. I fucking love Pantera and even though it was not Pantera it knocked me out. The fact that it was actually a live livestream instead of pre-recorded definitely helped and I am pretty sure I have not rocked out harder to another stream. Even though the mouthpiece had weathered a little from years of hard living he was still there. The need for two guitarists to even attempt to recreate what one Mr. Dimebag was able to do speaks volumes to how massive he was. RIP Abbott Bros.
Transistor was released on August 5, 1997 and the first time I ever saw 311 was exactly three months later on November fifth. While this stream was not half the experience of that concert it was still special. Maybe it was due to the stream actually being on 3/11 but something just felt different about this one versus the other two I had seen. Maybe it is just because I forgot how many songs I really like on the album. Maybe the band was stoned? Whatever the reason(s) I thoroughly enjoyed seeing/hearing 311 play the shit out of “Transistor,” “Beautiful Disaster,” “Electricity,” “Use of Time,” “The Continuous Life,” “Color,” “Light Years,” “Borders” and “Stealing Happy Hours.” S.A. Martinez has a unique voice and his singing on “Inner Light Spectrum” was stellar. Before performing “Light Years” Nick Hexum said that the song was tentatively named “Ghost Town Reggae.” Apparently ghosts killed the bass after that because P-Nut was out of service for the whole song but the rest of the band carried on like the professionals that they are.
This stream was originally to take place on January 11th but due to COVID restrictions going back into place got moved to February 19th. Lucky me since not only did I miss the stream for Grassroots but also forgot all about this stream until after the 11th when I then realized my lucky break. The eponymous “Blue album” in full, in sequence? Yes please.
The format and setup of this stream was almost identical to the one for Music that I caught back in November and just like that one I was nodding my head pretty much the entire time throughout the stream. Highlights for me were the same songs as my favorite songs on the album; “Down,” “Random,” “Jackolantern’s Weather,” Hive,” “Misdirected Hostility” and “Purpose.” After they worked their way through the whole album they took a short intermission and came back for a set of six “B-Sides” including fan fave “Firewater.” S.A. Martinez got so into the performance that he had to change his shirt for the Q&A portion at the end because he was sweating so profusely. I also noticed Tim Mahoney’s “guitar face” a lot more this time but that could have been due to me being completely sober this time.
A killer bonus of this stream was the announcement that they decided to do streams for their next three albums Transistor, Soundsystem and From Chaos starting March 11th, which I am sure they will have something special up their sleeve for since that is 3/11.
Avatar was mentioned quite a few times whenever I had stumbled across something asking people about favorite bands they had seen live though I had never even heard Avatar save for a few tracks Bob sent my way. I then learned about an ambitious four part live stream to take place four consecutive Saturdays in January and thought this would be the perfect time to see what all the fuss was about.
All of the paid streams I have witnessed thus far have given a 72-hour timeframe after the stream to watch if the original “live” time was missed or to re-watch the stream. It took me all of the 72 hours just to get through the hour and forty minute stream once. Maybe I’m just an old cranky bastard who has seen too many great bands but almost immediately the synchronized head twirling ala Butcher Babies and the contrived nature of the whole thing just turned me off and thus I turned the stream off after about 15 minutes. I understand the unified visual theme of black, red and white ala the White Stripes but the band kept moving from one “room” to another on a soundstage and overall the entire performance just felt a little too “places everyone” for my liking. The makeup clad singer looked and played the role of ringmaster with more than a slight resemblance to Marilyn Manson due to being tall and skinny but was missing the tattoos and dangerous demeanor. The band is musically talented but just not my cup of tea.
Having missed the first two installments of Clutch’s “Doom Saloon” livestreams, I was ecstatic when “Doom Saloon III” was announced. Even better was the fact that it was being advertised as a “greatest hits” performance or as the website said, “We have put together a set list of 15 of our most popular songs as requested by you the fans.” Having seen Clutch live many times my only complaint of recent shows is that they rarely play older material so I took this as a chance for fans like me to finally get to hear more of the older stuff. The term “older” does have some relativity here since they are now up to twelve studio albums so what I mean by older is the first two or three albums, having been a fan since the first release Transnational Speedway League. Don’t get me wrong I also like the “newer” material but those first few albums just hold a special place in my heart I guess.
The stream started out with a montage of fan-submitted footage of people singing along and playing along with Clutch songs on their instrument of choice. After this there was a segment called “Clutch Reacts: Archives” that showed the band reminiscing about old footage of themselves interspersed with questions from fans. This was followed by a tour of their combo Weathermaker record label warehouse where they house their wares before being shipped out and band gear and Doom Saloon studio which houses the live room where they hang out, jam and stream. During the Q&A section I found it interesting that the band was evenly split between Jam Room (Neil and Tim) and Clutch (rhythm sectin) when asked what their favorite album was. It was also interesting to hear how integral they consider performing live to the writing process since it gives them an opportunity to test out the crowd reaction. When asked about their favorite song they all said the “newest one we’re working on,” which was akin to asking an athlete why they won the game and receiving a response of “we scored more points than the other team.”
“Earth Rocker” got the party started and although I thought the sound quality was fantastic Neil apparently thought differently as evidenced by his comment immediately after of “OK. Just so you know this is not pre-recorded otherwise we would re-cut that because there’s something going on with the bass. We’ll figure it out. We’ll have to sort that out before “Spacegrass.” What I heard in this comment was a.) the sound quality was about to get even better and b.) I was going to get to see/hear “Spacegrass.” Eff yeah!
Circling back to set list of the most popular songs, Neil further clarified before they began saying that these songs were the top 15 from over 4,000 submissions for “Doom Saloon II “and would be played staring with number 15 going all the way down to number 1. All I have to say is either the group of 4,000 that voted has for the most part a very different idea of the best Clutch songs than I do or Clutch just played what they wanted to play. I’ll never know for sure but I enjoyed the set regardless. “A Shogun Named Marcus” and “Spacegrass” were worth the price of admission alone.
SETLIST: Earth Rocker, Cypress Grove, 50,000 Unstoppable Watts, D.C. Sound Attack!, In Walks Barbarella, A Shogun Named Marcus, The Elephant Riders, The Regulator, The Mob Goes Wild, X-Ray Visions, 10001110101, Electric Worry, Burning Beard, A Quick Death in Texas, Spacegrass
Well it only took me nine livestreams to figure out that I should hook my laptop up to my tv using an HDMI cable instead of just watching on my laptop but I guess better late than never.
This livestream was being broadcast from Les Claypool’s winery, Claypool Cellars. Right at the beginning there was a disclaimer that mentioned the word “produced.” So much for a “live” stream… Those thoughts quickly melted away as soon as the stream began with “Those Damned Blue Collar Tweekers.” No banter, just right into it. It was mind blowing to see Les shred on a bass with a whammy bar and this was only the first song! Fuck yes Les! Somewhere in the middle of the song they took a detour to play “Lacquer Head” and then brought it back around to close “Tweekers” out. Killer.
After that they did “Too Many Puppies,” which also had a detour in the middle when they played “Sgt. Baker” before they brought it back around to close out “Puppies.” The level of musicianship to do this kind of thing is astounding. I was really digging the Sailing the Seas of Cheese vibe since that is one of my favorite Primus albums. The two gummies I ate beforehand probably did not hurt anything either. Right around this time I saw something on the chat that said “Les is more” that gave me a chuckle before they continued on with “American Life.”
Next they went back to Fizzle Fry with “Pudding Time.” Les proclaimed “Not too bad for a few old turds” afterwards then dedicated the next song “The Anitpop” to Eddie V (Eddie Van Halen). For “Seas of Cheese” Les played a skinny stand up bass on a stand with a bow as he did when I saw him with Sean Lennon with The Claypool Lennon Delirium. An image of a pig mask then appeared onscreen and I immediately thought “Mr. Krinkle” because of the video and the next thing you know they started playing it. This was funny because I was just thinking to myself not too long before this that I had loved Primus from the first time I heard them, which was when I saw the video for “Mr. Krinkle.”
Following this they went back to Antipop with “The Heckler” or as Les said, “This song is called the hackeysack, the hackeysackler.” At this point I was thinking Larry LaLonde does not get enough credit for being a badass guitarist. They stuck with Antipop with heavy psychedelic production effects during “Electric, Electric” then went back to Fizzle Fry with “Harold of the Rocks.” For “Over the Electric Grapevine” Les brought out another crazy custom bass. His basses remind me of Prince’s custom guitars.
Sailing the Seas of Cheese got more love with “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” then the cover of The Rainbow Goblins book appeared before they played “The Seven.” Just as it was when I saw The Claypool Lennon Delirium “Southbound Pachyderm” was the closer but this time I actually got to see it!
Overall this set that clocked in at exactly an hour and a half was damn near perfect. For a fan that has been with the band for this many years it was very exciting how deep into the catalog they went. A+
SETLIST: Those Damned Blue Collar Tweekers, Lacquer Head, Too Many Puppies, Sgt. Baker, American Life, Pudding Time, The Antipop, Seas of Cheese, Mr. Krinkle, The Heckler, Electric, Electric, Harold of the Rocks, Over the Electric Grapevine, Jerry Was a Race Car Driver, The Seven, Southbound Pachyderm
This was a star studded free livestream to honor the career of Alice In Chains and raise money for the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, also known locally as EMP or Experience Music Project as it was originally named. After 10 minutes of messing around with trying to get the feed it finally kicked on with Alice In Chains in the middle of performing “Your Decision.” Observations from the two and a half hour event:
Jerry Cantrell reprised his role as Nona from back in the day when they did the Nona Tapes! This was awesome because I had the original home video on VHS back in the day.
Mike McCready made a brief appearance doing the opening riff of “It Ain’t Like That” that made me want to hear the whole song but no dice.
Ann Wilson sang “Rooster” spliced with old Alice In Chains footage with Layne. She has an amazing voice but I just wasn’t feeling her version.
Corey Taylor, Dave Navarro and Taylor Hawkins did a performance of “Man In the Box” with current Jane’s Addiction bass player Chris Chaney. Some might say Corey was making the song his own with the vocals but to me it sounded like he was just struggling to imitate Layne. This is coming from a guy that loves Corey Taylor so no disrespect to him but after hearing two great singers do Alice In Chains songs it just made me appreciate how incredibly unique and talented Layne was even more. At this point I realized I was in for a long night.
Duff McKagan and Shooter Jennings did a pretty rad version of “Down In a Hole” with Duff impressively playing all the instruments except lead guitar. This is such a powerful song and they captured the overall mood perfectly.
Korn did an admirable job covering “Would?” but cover songs are a strange beast to me. I love Korn but feel like you either need to absolutely fucking nail it, make it way different or make it better in some way and this did not do any of those things for me.
Mark Lanegan and his backing band of misfits including Nancy Wilson covered “Brother” and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just got done reading Lanegan’s book and I could tell he was giving an inspired performance for his fallen friend.
Fishbone did a cover of “Them Bones” with horns and all and it was awesome. They definitely made this song their own but kept the bones of the song intact (pun intended).
MoPOP has a contest for local talent called Sound Off and at this point the program featured a handful of gifted artists doing various bits of Alice In Chains songs.
An artist named Liv Warfield did a cover of “Put You Down” that was respectable. It is always nice to hear women in rock.
Mastodon covered “Again” and the music part was on point but again I just was not digging the vocals.
Kim Thayil made an appearance with a group of people I did not recognize doing a full-length version of “It Ain’t Like That,” which finally quieted my brain after the teaser Mike McCready threw out at the top of the program.
Kim Thayil and Krist Novoselic doing “Drone” with two female singers was right up there as the highlight of the whole thing for me. It simply sounded great.
Weirdo extraordinaire Les Claypool made a cameo doing a crazy partial bass solo version of “Man In the Box” that was pretty cool.
Lily Cornell Silver (daughter of Chris Cornell and Susan Silver) made her professional music performance debut playing piano and singing the beautifully haunting “Black Gives Way to Blue” with Queensryche’s Chris DeGarmo accompanying her on acoustic guitar and she killed it. I guess it does not hurt to have great genes.
Mark Lanegan made a second appearance doing “Nutshell,” which I did not enjoy as much as his first act but still liked nonetheless.
Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd did “Angry Chair” with Tad Doyle singing and it stirred the same emotions in me as the Mastodon cover did: musically it was great but Tad’s vocals just were not doing it for me. Mike McCready showed up again during this just long enough to lay down a scorching one-two punch solo with Kim.
Billy Corgan did a stark rendition of “Check My Brain” alone with an acoustic guitar. I love Billy but if you have read this far then you know his voice was definitely out of its element here.
Metallica was one of the most anticipated performances of the night but when they finally appeared doing a partial acoustic version of “Would?” (that had already been done by Korn) it was a little disappointing.
The grand finale was Alice In Chains doing “No Excuses” and it was a nice ending to a really magnificent evening.
It is noteworthy that it was free to watch the event but money was being raised through donations. While this was nice it was also disheartening to see the tally of money raised at a paltry amount even as we neared the end of the broadcast. They could have raised way more money if they had just charged something in the first place. Since most of the other streams I have been watching average $15 for a ticket I made a donation in that amount because music is important and MoPOP is doing good work for the community and the arts in general.
