Melvins/Big Business - Music Hall of Williamsburg

As always, a brilliant display by the hands-down best functioning, most entertaining rock'n'roll unit out there today. Here's a quick rundown for those who missed it...

• Lacklustre opening set by Porn (featuring Tim Moss and Dale Crover); it just wasn't very interesting and went on for too long.

• Big Business came out roaring and it looked like Jared Warren shed a few pounds since the last time they came around. I think he's smaller than Buzz now. Other than the poor sound during the set and the jackass in the Clutch t-shirt who started a fight, their set was predictably great. I don't know what it is with soundguys and venues these days, but they've become incredibly inconsistent.

• "I'm getting too old for this shit." Kids love jumping around and whatnot, but it seemed like a first concert for some of these folks. Seriously, I had two young'uns posting up on me like I was Shaq trying to keep them from the stage. I'm fucking 5'8", guys, settle down. And of course the dude who started a fight because...ah, honestly I have no idea why. He probably has aggression issues. His stupidity, which it took several of us to break up, forced Jared to stop mid-song.

• I've already posted my feelings on Melvins' latest, Nude With Boots so is it even worth mentioning that it's brilliant to watch live? Sure! "It's brilliant to watch live." There ya go.

• Really, the openers were quite poorly named, as the dual drummer attack of Dale Crover and Coady Willis is, as my friend Chris aptly put it, "pretty much drum porn". After the hassle of being up front during the BigBiz set, we decided to retire to the old folks' home up in the mezzanine and watch from there. Turned out to be a great move since it allowed watching Dale and Coady without being leapt upon by overeager puppies.

• Two of the best covers ever done: a molasses-paced, Melvinized version of "My Generation" and the raddest "Star-Spangled Banner" since Hendrix. The latter was a capella until the drums kicked in for some proper pomp at the end.

• They closed with "Boris" which I thought was a nice touch after heavily concentrating on the two latest records for the majority of the set.

For anybody who is going to tomorrow's show at the Bowery Ballroom, expect a great show and hopefully your sound is better than ours was tonight. There was a constant bass buzz that was overshadowing Jared and mucking up the toms, almost like the subs were blown out. I expect better out of a such a newly redone venue, then again, I'm not at all surprised if they cut corners to save money when designing their sound system. Whatever...in general I'm pleased because at least these fellers bring their A+ game every time so it's always worthwhile.