Helmet: The Mohawk: November 2, 2019

Somewhat hilariously, I bought my tickets to go see this show like 30 seconds after they went on sale, back in June.  I set a calendar reminder, and was driving at the time near Boulder, Colorado, so I had my wife deal with scoring two tickets even though I was very clear with her that this show was not one she would enjoy.  But I scored tickets!  I'm in!  And then everyone I talked to before the show kicked off had bought their tickets like a week ago because it didn't come close to selling out.  Whatever!  As I've mentioned before, Meantime is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I was intensely into going to this show.

So, these guys really haven't made popular music in forever (only recently did I realize that they have made four albums since 2004), but they declared that this was their thirtieth anniversary, so they were going to do 30 shows of 30 songs for their 30th.  Although, something that wasn't apparent until the band took the stage, its really just Page Hamilton and then some younger dudes who have learned the old tunes.  Which, I'm not sure it really mattered, but part of me is bummed that it wasn't the original lineup.

No opener.  Doors opened at 8 and without an opener, I was worried that meant we needed to be there at 8.  Which meant we were in very prime position (to get kicked a bunch, but more on that later) and then had to cool our jets for an hour and a half before they took the stage.  But then it was all worth it.  They are extremely hard, and I know that isn't for everyone, but the level of complexity and unconventional time signatures they use, with a ton of repetition, while staying so hard, is one of the coolest parts.

My only complaint with the tunes is that I thought the vocals could have been louder in the speakers - Page got washed out by the crushing riffage for much of the show.  And also I could have used more tunes from Meantime - I think they played 3 or 4 - and I'm very jealous that the show before us got all of Strap it On, in order.  But even with a few more Betty songs than I would have wanted, it still ruled.  They covered Bjork's "Army of Me," for crying out loud.  How more On Brand for me could they get?  So, overall, the show was freaking awesome.

An aside that came to me both during and after the show though.  When I was a kid, and going to shows like Helmet or GWAR or whatever at Liberty Lunch, you would see some goober either vaguely or more explicitly dressing up like a Nazi - high black boots, maybe one of those hats, jacket or vest with patches on it, whatever.  For bands that had nothing to do with neo-Nazi views at all.  Like, freaking Mudhoney or something.  But in those days, maybe out of pure naivety from me, it felt like dumb dress up stuff, like some kid who thought it would be a laugh to draw a swastika on his hand before the show.  But in the new political landscape of today, that shit freaks me out.  There was a dude in the Mohawk crowd with a close-cropped, blonde, flattop haircut, wearing a silver shirt that had the big eagle thing that is on all of the boxes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (or at least it looked that way to me), who walked right over to the one African-American dude in the crowd and raised his hand up in the middle of the guy's back.  He didn't do anything - never touched him that I could see - but he also might have noticed me pausing in my old-man-lite-thrashing to eyeball his sketchy-looking ass.  After a few seconds of looking like he was about to shove the guy into the moon, he squeezed away to somewhere else.  Later, I saw a different kind of skeevy guy drop a folding knife on the floor and then quickly pick it up to shove it back into his big leather jacket.  A young kid and I both saw it, exchanged eyebrows-up looks, and edged back from the guy a little bit.  Now, neither of those dudes did a damn thing, but my radar definitely picked them up in a way I don't think I would have in 1992.  Made the watching experience a little more wary.  Which sucks.

Also of note, that one African-American dude in the crowd.  Had the best energy in the whole place - just exuberantly singing along and jumping and trying to crowd-surf the pit.  I loved having him up there in the pit.  Although, at one point her did a sweet scissor-kick freakout jump while directly in front of me, and caught me squarely on the thigh, with a light squash to the left nad, and I could have used a touch less exuberance in that particular moment.

This is the longest live music review I have written in a while.  One more story - I actually caught a pick from Page.  Freaking awesome - I never get to snag things like that at a show, and I didn't even try for it.  He flung it from the front of the stage, and it careened through the air to neatly wedge in the crook of my folded arms.  The people around me fired up their phone flashlights and were scouring the floor, and I got to proudly hold up my prize.  Sweet!