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Tour Dates
April 29 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge
May 1 Seattle, WA The Showbox May 2 Vancouver, BC Venue May 3 Portland, OR Roseland Theater May 5 San Francisco, CA Slim’s May 6 San Francisco, CA Slim’s May 7 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour May 8 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour May 9 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour June 3 -5 Bristol, UK Temples Festival June 17 Clisson, France Hellfest Read More
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The “Savage Imperial Death March Tour”, featuring British metal band Napalm Death, American punk/metal band The Melvins and Japanese noise artists Melt-Banana, recently came to First Avenue in Minneapolis.
The show started off with Melt-Banana. Currently the band is a duo, featuring singer Yasuko Onuki and guitarist Agata. Just a little backstory on why Agata wears his signature surgical mask, it is because he’s prone to have noise bleeds during his intense live performances.
Like their previous appearances, Onuki had her digital software controller (to trigger drums and other strange sounds) and Agata had his complicated guitar setup, which included an impressive arsenal of pedal effects and their patented amp-feeding-into-amp (they often bring their own amps on tour). The result is Melt-Banana may be one of the loudest band around, and they’re proud of that fact.
Their music was fast and loud. There was one point where Yasuko said they were going to play six short songs rapid fire. She wasn't kidding about the short part. These songs seemed more like excerpts from songs being that they were only about fifteen seconds long each. Even when the songs were longer than fifteen seconds, they were fast and powerful.
Second to play Sunday night was The Melvins. These guys have a huge following in Minneapolis. I truly thought they were from here but apparently that's not true at all, people up here just really, really like them and you could tell by watching the crowd.
Singer and guitarist Buzz Osborne, aka King Buzzo (dressed in an illuminati robe), and was joined on stage by bassist
Steven Shane McDonald and Dale Crover (the latter two wearing t-shirts with their first name). Fun fact, McDonald is normally the bassist to the legendary Redd Kross.... and was probably the reason why the Melvins covered “Frosted Flake” on their set.
The Melvins is hard to classify musically. They are a little punk, a little metal, a lot of sludgy stoner rock, some experimental... Regardless of how you want to classify them, they had the crowd completely captivated. As soon as the music started, the crowd was headbanging in perfect time. It almost looked like waves or something.
I couldn't help but watch the crowd during the whole set. The crowd was so excited to see this legendary band play and almost instantly, the mosh pit broke. It wasn't as extreme as some of the pits I have seen but it kept growing and growing with every song and eventually, majority of the floor was a giant stoner pit of people just casually bumping into each other and shoving each other.
People were screaming and shouting at them in between songs but as soon as the music started, the crowd would go silent as to respect the art and give The Melvins the attention that they more than deserved.
Highlight of their hour-plus set was when Napalm Death’s Shane Embury joined them on stage to help add an extra double bass to “Night Goat”... this was medley with “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as Crover stepped out from the drum kit to sing the song with the audience.
Headlining the show was Napalm Death. I've dreamt about the day I will finally get to see these guys live and last Sunday night was everything I wanted it to be.
Napalm Death has been around forever. They started in 1981 and have been around ever since. These guys were probably the most classifiable band of the night. They were metal, with a little bit of punk, a little bit of grind... well crap, now you understand why the phrase "soiree of weirdness" is a perfect way to explain the music of last night.
Their lyrics, if you can actually understand them, make you think. Some are political and some just really make you question other people's views on the world and even your own views. It was great to see this emotion displayed live and even more amazing to hear Mark explain what some of the songs were actually about. When he explained the meaning behind some of them, you could just hear the passion in his voice and it made you feel passionate about the music they were putting out there.
These guys have put out 16 full length albums thus far (with no end in sight) so obviously they couldn't play everything. They did a great job of mixing old and new music along with a couple covers including a Dead Kennedys (“Nazi Punks F**k Off”) and a Cryptic Slaughter cover (“Lowlife”) ... which the crowd went absolutely bats**t over).
The Savage Imperial Death March Tour was originally to end this May 7th at the Troubadour in Los Angeles... but based on strong interest/sold out status, the band added two additional shows (May 8th and May 9th). All Los Angeles dates are now sold out.
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Melt-Banana |
Like their previous appearances, Onuki had her digital software controller (to trigger drums and other strange sounds) and Agata had his complicated guitar setup, which included an impressive arsenal of pedal effects and their patented amp-feeding-into-amp (they often bring their own amps on tour). The result is Melt-Banana may be one of the loudest band around, and they’re proud of that fact.
Their music was fast and loud. There was one point where Yasuko said they were going to play six short songs rapid fire. She wasn't kidding about the short part. These songs seemed more like excerpts from songs being that they were only about fifteen seconds long each. Even when the songs were longer than fifteen seconds, they were fast and powerful.
Second to play Sunday night was The Melvins. These guys have a huge following in Minneapolis. I truly thought they were from here but apparently that's not true at all, people up here just really, really like them and you could tell by watching the crowd.
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King Buzzo
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The Melvins is hard to classify musically. They are a little punk, a little metal, a lot of sludgy stoner rock, some experimental... Regardless of how you want to classify them, they had the crowd completely captivated. As soon as the music started, the crowd was headbanging in perfect time. It almost looked like waves or something.
I couldn't help but watch the crowd during the whole set. The crowd was so excited to see this legendary band play and almost instantly, the mosh pit broke. It wasn't as extreme as some of the pits I have seen but it kept growing and growing with every song and eventually, majority of the floor was a giant stoner pit of people just casually bumping into each other and shoving each other.
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Melvins, with Shane Embury |
Highlight of their hour-plus set was when Napalm Death’s Shane Embury joined them on stage to help add an extra double bass to “Night Goat”... this was medley with “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as Crover stepped out from the drum kit to sing the song with the audience.
Headlining the show was Napalm Death. I've dreamt about the day I will finally get to see these guys live and last Sunday night was everything I wanted it to be.
Napalm Death has been around forever. They started in 1981 and have been around ever since. These guys were probably the most classifiable band of the night. They were metal, with a little bit of punk, a little bit of grind... well crap, now you understand why the phrase "soiree of weirdness" is a perfect way to explain the music of last night.
Their lyrics, if you can actually understand them, make you think. Some are political and some just really make you question other people's views on the world and even your own views. It was great to see this emotion displayed live and even more amazing to hear Mark explain what some of the songs were actually about. When he explained the meaning behind some of them, you could just hear the passion in his voice and it made you feel passionate about the music they were putting out there.
These guys have put out 16 full length albums thus far (with no end in sight) so obviously they couldn't play everything. They did a great job of mixing old and new music along with a couple covers including a Dead Kennedys (“Nazi Punks F**k Off”) and a Cryptic Slaughter cover (“Lowlife”) ... which the crowd went absolutely bats**t over).
The Savage Imperial Death March Tour was originally to end this May 7th at the Troubadour in Los Angeles... but based on strong interest/sold out status, the band added two additional shows (May 8th and May 9th). All Los Angeles dates are now sold out.
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Napalm Death at First Avenue, Minneapolis (24 April 2016) |
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