At this point, I’ve probably seen Weedeater more times than Dixie’s got toes, but they always keep me coming back for more. I often refer to them as The Three Stooges of sludge metal, owing to their goofy, slapstick-style set. And hey, when they’ve got a couple West Coast bands in tow who don’t come here often, it even makes listening to reggae between each and every single band on the PA more palatable…well, almost.
In fact, there were five freakin’ acts on this event, which didn’t end until 1:30 in the morning. Local sludgesters Pale Mare put on an equally punishing, albeit more abbreviated, version of their opening set from last month’s Windhand gig, coming off as a cross between Buzzoven and High on Fire, before Rochesterians King Buffalo mellowed things out with a very Dead Meadowy performance. (I think they’ll go nicely with Elder, come October.) All this before we got to the first touring outfit, Serial Hawk, all the way from Seattle, who served things up low ‘n slow with their heavy, droning sludge/doom. Go Hawks! 😉
Vancouver’s Black Wizard kicked the tempo up, well, several notches, coming in full speed with their stoner metal attack. If Red Fang were a buncha long-haired longboarders from East Van, they would probably sound something like this.
Weedeater took the stage to the old show tune “Putting on the Ritz” (probably the best thing they played on the PA all night), and proceeded to put on a typically boozy, sludgy, 60-minute set. I’m not sure if it’s a credit to the Velvet’s sound system, or if it was due to the fact that I was standing directly in front of Dixie Dave, but this might have been the first Weedeater show where I could actually hear the vocals, which revealed that Dixie’s just singing gibberish half the time. But hey, if I was drinking Jim Beam straight from the bottle, I probably wouldn’t remember all the words to “Gimme Back My Bullets,” either…so no harm, no foul!
