Black

I went to visit Mama Peggie in the hospital thingie (technically rehab place, not drug rehab, but medical, temporary nursing home kinda thing). My dad was there and he kinda got on my nerves being a condescending dick. Oh, the night before while hanging out with Jason and Tara, I just happened to find out that Black Flag was playing the next night from some stranger. It's weird I hadn't even known about it. At first I didn't think much about it. Then yesterday I looked up some recent live videos from this year and thought they were pretty good so figured it'd be worth going. So Mary Beth and I went eventually. The first band was already playing when we got there. It's unfortunately we didn't miss more of their set. Super Witch. They were awful. They sounded like early Soundgarden or Alice in Chains. Funny, after they were done the sound guy was like "now THAT'S rock." (Makes sense as he was playing Alice in Chains and 90s Metallica between bands.) During the set I found out one of the guys in the band is Jocephus, one of the guys Paul used to be in a band with and bitches about a lot and is in a million other terrible bands. Black Oak Arkansas was next. They were a set up at least. I mean, they're corny and definitely not my thing, but they weren't downright horrible. And Jim Dandy had this cute old man thing going on that was actually endearing. They did play WAY too long, however. I mean, I guess that should be expected from a band that's been so big at certain points (and I wouldn't guess is usually an opening act). Anyway, Black Flag came on. They were mostly good. For the first stretch of songs they seemed kinda going through the motions and churning out "the hits." It also didn't help that Greg Ginn's guitar was too low here (I mean, THAT is the reason I wanted to see Black Flag in the first place!). Oh, I'll throw out here how fucking awful the sound guy at the Deli is. Jesus christ. And not just during Black Flag. Other bands would also need something adjusted and be like "is there a sound guy back there?" He spent most of the time away from the fucking console. The mic would feedback (not a ton, but it'd keep happening now and again after the band addressed it to him). Finally several songs into it, Greg was playing a solo and I guess it was beyond obvious more guitar should have been heard and it finally got turned up. Towards the end it seemed to be too low again, though. This guy was just not being attentive to the sound at all. Anyway, the feeling of the show did get better as it went on. They did not play any of my most favorite songs though ("The Process of Weeding Out," "Damaged I," "Nothing Left Inside"). The closest runners up were "Damaged II" and "Depression." They played a lot of the hits and all the dumb macho drunk guys went crazy in "the pit" at the obvious moments. They did have some jammier moments that I enjoyed, I wished there were more. I enjoyed the songs too, but it did feel kinda goofy when they'd play those real early ones that were barely over a minute long and then, okay it's over. Greg seemed pretty happy and having a lot of fun. Oh, and he had a theremin on stage and never even used it! That bummed me a little. It's funny how much younger everyone else in the band is. They were all good though. The drummer and the bass player were pretty solid. The singer was good too, nothing surprising or anything. His singing leaned towards a pretty alright Rollins impersonation. He kept that style throughout, even on the Keith Morris songs (which is for the best). They did "Louie Louie" as their last song and Greg and the bassist traded instruments. A bit into it Greg passed the bass to the singer and left stage with a beer and then stood out in the crowd watching them play. He seemed like a pretty affable guy (maybe just not if you've worked with him musically). They were by no means Swans-level incredible or anything, but it was an enjoyable show. I picked up some merch afterwards, a couple cds: My War and Slip It In and a Process of Weeding Out t-shirt (hey, my favorite thing of theirs!). Okay! More intervals waking up today. That's about it.