With all due respect to the City Arts folks and their otherwise accomplished second-year fest-planning, their decision to replace the early-canceling Fastbacks with a new-blood band, rather than bump Mudhoney to the top of Saturday’s Neumos bill, sure miffed me.
Mudhoney supporting the Fastbacks seemed a natural fit, given both bands’ endurance and mythic local status; Mudhoney supporting a band born last year, no matter how they approached rock, seemed simply lame. A slight to legend. An indifferent shrug at all the flannel-clad, balding dudes still spinning Superfuzz Bigmuff and Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge vinyl in their basements. A flippant bird flipped right in my face, in other words.
But Hot Bodies In Motion were good. Their self-described “baby-makin’ mammal funk” had feet stomping, heads nodding, and PBR cans draining. Guitarist Ben Carson’s low-range, adaptive lead vocals pleased my Vedder/Lanegan/Cornell sensibilities even if his slight growl did sound very much like Dan Auerbach’s. They were like the Black Keys with a few more keys, avoiding derivative by producing a fuller sound.
Still, I missed Mudhoney right away. Their vicious jam of a 45-minute set, kicked off with “No One Has” and capped off with the punk-brief “Fix Me,” was over far too quickly.
Perhaps not too quickly for the few photographers who shot the night’s acts (including Lovesick Empire, which I missed, and Thee Emergency, which was typically raw and sexy, thanks mostly to the heavy breathing, strong vocals, and naughty poses of Dita Vox). From the much calmer edge of stage right, I watched several photogs get pushed, pulled, and pummeled at the lip of the stage, trying to snap the band—frontman Mark Arm (whose typical frenetic energy was tampered a bit by his playing guitar through most of the set), furry-bearded guitarist Steve Turner, friendly-looking bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer Dan Peters—while shooting daggers over their shoulders and protecting their bags from spilled beer. No thank you.
My avoidance behavior actually complemented the approach I’d hoped to take: shooting to catch more of the stage, and loosely, with an amateur’s nod at Charles Peterson’s classic, genre-defining turbulent style. It also helped me enjoy the show, which the real photographers didn’t appear to do.
But it’s easy to enjoy a Mudhoney show. Twenty-three years into a mostly under-the-radar career, they still play with youthful energy, tearing through each song—typically a smattering of catalog-ranging fan (and band) favorites and, on this night, their fiery take on Fang’s “The Money Will Roll Right In”—like they’ve just learned to play it.
As always, the band was also fun to watch as they kicked out dry-humor jams both classic (“Touch Me I’m Sick,” “F.D.K.”) and contemporary (“Hard-On For War,” “The Open Mind”). Turner’s calm demeanor belied the jagged chords—and brief, impressive solos—that spewed from his guitar. Maddison bobbed his head and bounced with a bemused grin. And Arm swayed liked a coiled serpent—striking out over the stage’s edge and those harried photographers—when he put down his guitar, charming the packed house into tossing up fists and singing along and laughing at the occasional deadpan joke. (His introduction to the winkingly vengeful Fang cover: “This is a lullaby my mother sang to me as a child.”)
And then they were done. And some up-and-coming dudes took their places on the stage. Some might call it a passing of the torch, but I don’t think Mudhoney will be ready to do that anytime soon.