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| From left: Guy Maddison, Mark Arm, Dan Peters, Steve Turner. |
Concert Review: Mudhoney at Lincoln Hall, Chicago, May 26, 2019
Thirty years after releasing their debut Sub Pop EP “Superfuzz Bigmuff”--the seminal grunge album--Mudhoney is on the road in support of 10th studio album “Digital Garbage,” a scathing rundown of current social-political flash points. The sold-out crowd of 40-somethings enthusiastically embraced the Seattle legends who ripped through classics as well as at least seven songs from their latest effort.
The first half of the 90-minute set featured singer Mark Arm playing rhythm on a black Gretsch guitar, flanked by red-shirted lead guitarist Steve Turner and bass player Guy Maddison, with the relentlessly nimble drummer Dan Peters behind. Genre-defining songs “Touch Me I’m Sick,” “Here Comes Sickness,” “Suck You Dry” and “You Got It”--released decades ago--still bristled with manic fury and seaminess and heavy reverb, the undeniable superfuzz-bigmuff aesthetic and nostalgia compelling those close by the stage to form an old-school mosh pit.
Arm discarded his guitar about halfway through the set and, as if suddenly free from the confines of playing rhythm guitar, channeled his inner Iggy Pop on new song “Paranoid Core,” singing “I stoke the fire of your paranoid core / I feed on your fear.” “Evangelical hypocrites / laying hands on a pile of shit” were the target of Arm’s ire on “21st Century Pharisees,” representing the band’s most blistering religious commentary. “Prosperity Gospel” allowed Arm to lament everything from the industrial-military complex to the mortgage crisis to the greed of Big Pharma, backed with angst-inducing post-punk/grunge immediacy. These topical tracks from “Digital Garbage” were received slightly less fervently from the crowd, even if Arm and the rest of the band never let up their intensity.
“Kill Yourself Live,” about social media addiction, is the best song--musically and lyrically--on the new album. The live version lacked the backing organ on the studio version--an organ sound that harkens back to 1992’s “Piece of Cake”--but the energy of the instrumentation and urgency of the message was felt.
But in the end, it wasn’t the progressive social-political commentary that worked up the crowd the most. It was reveling in the edgy, no-bullshit Pacific Northwest mystique that tweaked the crowd into writhing action: to acknowledge this, the band’s multi-song encore featured “In ‘n’ Out of Grace,” with Arm snidely biting off the naughty lyrics amid Turner’s furious--and fuzzy--powerchord riffing: “spill my seed, suck my waste / sliding in and out of Grace”...suddenly, it was 1989 again and the musical possibilities were endless.
Link to set list.
Bonus fanboy/geek-out moment: As I was watching opening band METZ--an energetic noise rock/post-punk outfit from the Sub Pop stable--from the balcony, purely by chance Mudhoney bass player Guy Maddison appeared next to me. No one around seemed to notice him but me.
At the end of the next song, I awkwardly said to him, "Hey, man, great to see you," and he politely shook my outstretched hand. I then said, "I'm really looking forward to tonight's show."
A few songs later, I asked him how the tour was going. He said fine, that they were headed back home Tuesday, and that he "had to go to work." I laughed and said, "me too."
As if that wasn't cool enough, I next found myself standing next to Mudhoney singer-guitarist Mark Arm. It was at that point that I realized I was in the part of the balcony closest to the green room. I was standing next to grunge royalty--next to someone just as responsible (if not more so) for pioneering this culturally influential musical genre as Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder.
I turned to Mark, shook his hand and also told him how much I was looking forward to Mudhoney's set. I told him how much I liked the new album ("Digital Garbage") and how much I appreciated the lyrical messages too.
Lastly, I told him I was a fan from way back. He said, "I could tell from your shirt." I was wearing a Mudhoney shirt purchased from their tour in support of 1992's "Piece of Cake."
Speechless.
