Meat Puppets @ Brooklyn Bowl - October 12, 2013
Photos/Review: Chris
First things first: it's been well over a year since a post has gone up on this here website. Here's a vague explanation of what happened: over the summer of 2012, life got a little complicated, all but forcing me to focus on things that were far more important than going to shows in New York City. I initially intended for the hiatus to be short term while I took care of shit, but I just never got it together enough to get full on back into managing Fucking Nostalgic. It was a full time job, and I already had one of those, plus a personal life that I needed to tend to. Keeping up a blog is not an easy thing to do, as many will tell you.
But then I started going through some of posts and photo galleries and, well, I got pretty fucking nostalgic about Fucking Nostalgic. We covered some amazing shows, interviewed some iconic musicians, and threw some awesome parties. The contributors to FN are some of my favorite people on Earth. It would be really hard to make Fucking Nostalgic as constant a thing as it once was, but if we have something to share with you, we're going to try and share it.
Which brings me to last night's Meat Puppets show, which incidentally was a part of the ongoing CBGB Festival taking place in New York City this weekend. I'll just get it out of the way: HOLY SHIT, the Meat Puppets are great. The first time I saw the incredibly influential band was only a couple years ago at Le Poisson Rouge. I was blown away by how incredibly tight a band they were, considering how archaic and raw albums like II and Up on the Sun sound. Not to mention the well-documented hardships bassist Cris Kirkwood faced towards the end of the Meat Puppets original run (though Cris has been sober since for over a decade). I wasn't sure what to expect, but that LPR show ended up being one of my favorite shows of the year.
Last night was no different. Curt Kirkwood (who was recently the subject of a great interview by Marc Maron on WTF), Cris Kirkwood, Elmo Kirkwood (Curt's son) and Shandon Sahm played a little over 90 minutes last night to a rather ecstatic crowd -- plowing through well-known favorites "Up on the Sun," "Backwater," and "I'm a Mindless Idiot" in addition to the later-made-famous-by-Nirvana trio of songs, "Plateau," "Oh, Me" and "Lake of Fire." Plus a cover of the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" -- something I've seen them pull off each and every time I've seen them live. If it ain't broke, don't fix it I suppose. No encore, but Curt did return to the stage a cappella while his brother and son danced around and hugged each other. It was an adorable family moment we got to witness to close out the night.
If you haven't caught the Meat Puppets live yet, you're doing it wrong. They're easily one of my favorite bands to catch, and you owe it to yourself to witness a legendary band still somehow in their prime. Check out some more photos from last night's show below...
