Throwing. Muses.

[music | Pigface - Mind Your Own Business (Remix by Tweaker)]

Seeing Throwing Muses brought me straight back to the days of all the great bands I missed because I was too young to get from NH into Boston to see things. I'm so glad I can get to all the shows now, in a big way because everyone I "missed" when I was 16 or 17 is still rocking hard, albeit sometimes very differently. (see also, Pixies, Aimee Mann, etc.) Plus a new "Gem" in Bullseye, with a great Boston Lineage.

This is the second time in a couple months that I've seen large parts of a band open for themselves (RevCo/Ministry) and it was really good this time around too. 50ft Wave is different enough music that you can really see changes in direction, which I can see starting with the Bright Yellow Gun release, harder, but more accessible music for people who hadn't kept up with the Muses from day one.

Between 50ft Wave and the Muses were Bullseye. Band of, from what I gather, 4th through 6th graders, which is only slightly younger than Kristin and Tanya were when they started playing out and recording. You could tell people's expectations when they took the stage, but the "Novelty Factor" wore off before the first song was over. It's not that they don't have a long way to grow, but they were as quality as any purely opening act I've seen in quite some time. The "Boston Lineage" angle was something I had to dig up when I heard the word "SKEGGIE" yelled at some point during their indroduction. The lead singer (12, 12!) and the drummer belong Greg "Skeg" Kendall from Lifeboat, who recorded and mixed with Gary Smith of Fort Apache fame.

It struck me through their set how "Boston" they sounded, like all the bands with a start from Ft Apache (Muses, Pixies et al), I guess there's my answer. If anyone cares about Boston music, they'll read all of Rock in Boston, which is Joe Harvard's account of his time in the scene, starting Fort Apache, losing his share largely due to drugs, and all the friends and good sounds that came out of it.

The Muses set was amazing, there is so much catalog to draw from that I couldn't feel too bad about Green and Counting Backwards not being part of it. I think another guy in the audience took the Counting Backwards thing a lot harder than I did, since he kept yelling for it. I don't know enough history to know if Kristin Hersh is terrified on stage, or if it's just her style, but she had a cold stare directly at the wall in the back for the duration. It made it even better to hear the wild growls coming out of this tiny person standing there dancing mainly with her head. She just draws me in, vocally and now visually.

We were right up front and right in front of the speaker stack for Kristin for both sets. I can tell you 50 Ft Wave and a couple of Muses songs absolutely were some of the loudest bits of any show I've seen (aside from when stupid Godsmack deafened me for 4 weeks with idiot fireworks inside, no kidding, stone deaf, boneheads, good plan). I go to a lot of loud shows. That's saying something. They untied one of my double-knotted boots.

Things got off really late (Muses at 11:30), so we missed the last train out of Cambridge and had to pay like $20 for a cab ride to get the 4 T stops back to our car, but I couldn't be bothered with that at the time.

People with cameras that are much better than my phone have pics here and here.