For people of a certain age, mentioning the Meat Puppets brings to mind one thing: Nirvana’s Unplugged album. The cover versions of three Meat Puppets songs are better known than their original recordings, and I suspect many of the younger patrons here tonight are here for a little Nirvana-by-proxy. Whatever the reason, Doug Fir’s basement is filled with eager fans. The band takes the stage without much fanfare, and starts off with a meandering jam session. Once that runs its course, the opening notes of "Plateau" draw enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. Curt Kirkwood's voice struggles a bit, reminiscent of Kurt Cobain's gravelly delivery of the song 18 years ago. Whether it’s homage or dehydration, he recovers his vocal chords for the next song, the energetic "Touchdown King."
In a nearby corner of the room, a pair of bloated middle-aged men are shrieking and howling at an excessive volume. They’ve been doing this since the band appeared, and like an overgrown Beavis and Butthead, they show no sign of stopping. One of them has a phone with a flash on it, and has been sending bursts of surprisingly powerful light toward the stage at regular intervals. As seasoned professionals, the band is unfazed by this annoyance. Kirkwood shows off his melodic whistling capabilities on "The Monkey and the Snake," and a good old-fashioned hoedown erupts. Many of the ensuing songs feature several-minute jam sessions reminiscent of the intro, which does become excessive as the clock ticks well past midnight. No matter. Both band and audience are enjoying themselves.
Once “Oh Me” rolls around, a feeling of nostalgia grips the room. It's a much more hopeful rendition than the one made mainstream by the late Cobain, and Kirkwood sings it with a smile. True to the band’s desert rock sub-genre, several peppy songs follow. In accordance with the country undertones, they cover Freddy Fender's "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights." Of course, the night wouldn't be complete without the band’s biggest commercial hit, "Backwater," which received extensive radio play in the mid-1990s. For this song, the band is joined in spirit by several crowd members on air guitar. The evening is drawing to a close as the hour pushes 1:00, and a quiet song is in order. It’s a cover of an old folk number with several names, originally called "The John B. Sails." The delivery is sweet and wistful, and captures the sentiment of the late hour with its chorus of "I want to go home." They close out the performance with a raucous rendition of crowd favorite "Lake of Fire," and everything is as it should be. Though this band has split, reorganized, and reformed several times over the last 30 years, the performance has been tight and impressive the whole way through.
Preceding the Meat Puppets are Denver, Colorado's Bad Weather California, who introduce themselves by saying "we’re gonna lay down some kind of vibe." That is the idea, isn’t it? They start off punky and fast-paced, fitting perfectly with the headliners. However, there’s a playful island undertone to their second song. They are a genre-bending band, and elements of psychedelia also creep into their music. With a scratchy voice that sounds on the verge of giving out, the singer makes a mumbled reference to Fugazi before shifting gears once more for a tune reminiscent of old Paul Simon material. As if the sonic variety weren’t intriguing enough, there’s exaggerated guitarist booty-shaking to look at. Furthermore, the drummer is using a maraca in lieu of a drumstick. This band is truly all over the place, but the shifts steer clear of schizophrenia territory. They are calculated moves that make one feel as if one is hopping between listening stations at a giant record store. There’s a call-and-response period, lightning-quick lyric delivery over bluegrassy fingerpicking, and a brief storytelling session set to a Caribbean beat. The performance teeters on the brink of sensory overload, but never falls over the edge.
The night began with Black Box Revelation, a two-person band featuring a drummer and a singer/guitarist. The beats are simple and aggressive, overlaid by jarring vocals that create a 1970s garage rock vibe. The singer's voice is nasal and high-pitched, reminiscent of Adore-era Smashing Pumpkins. Here all the way from Belgium, he seems the slightest bit uncomfortable with English. Language facility aside, their performance grows on me. They are enthusiastic and hardworking, and are thrilled to be performing in Portland for the first time. Toward the end of their set is a song called "I Think I Like You." The feeling is mutual, gents. As it draws to a close, they’ve drawn a well-earned crowd of listeners who stand in a curved row near the stage. They’re enjoying a long instrumental break that is rife with energy, and guitar riffs that sound like racecars whizzing past. Once the final song ends, cheers ring through the venue and it’s clear that they’ll be warmly welcomed back.
