Back on September 23, I ventured up to Cleveland to go see Helmet lay sonic waste to the Grog Shop. And to think my dumb ass almost didn’t go.
I was reeling from a combination of exhaustion, depression and my hourly crisis of confidence. There is no rhyme or reason as to why I do what I do and sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated to do the damned thing. Especially since I’m doing this on my own and have no one around to give me a push out the door when I need one.
I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a crowd and the shitty Pittsburgh weather was making it difficult for me to find the will to live and get off of the couch. It also didn’t help that I received a message from the venue the day before saying that doors and the start time for the show were being pushed back. I’m guessing that a local opener either dropped off the show or one couldn’t be found. Which is a shame because I’ve always dug the bands I’ve seen open shows at the Grog Shop.
When I had all but made up my mind to stay home, I heard a thump on my front porch. It was the sound of Glen E. Friedman’s new book, Just A Minor Threat, being delivered. After a cursory flip through the book of forty some year old pictures of Minor Threat, I said “Fuck it” and got in the car. Thank you for being an endless source of inspiration, Mr. Friedman. A brief glance at this book helped to stop me from being stupid and passing on the chance to take pictures of one of my favorite bands.
This was my third trip to Cleveland in less than ten days. The first trip was for night one of a Boris and Melvins doubleheader at the Beachland Ballroom and the second was for True Widow at Mahall’s.
The True Widow show at Mahall’s was the fourth show I attended this year that took place at a venue that was connected to a bowling alley. And all four shows were at four different venues between Pennsylvania and Ohio. It’s a weird trend and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
I was talking to Slim, the drummer from True Widow, and he said that they tried to get a show in Pittsburgh but their booking agent struck out with the promoters they reached out to. It supposedly had something to do with the promoters not being able to find an available venue. I really want to know what promoters their booking agent talked to so I can give said promoters a stern talking to. To see that band play two nights in a row, I would have put that show in my living room if I had to.
I have been a fan of Helmet since the first time I saw them play with the Rollins Band at Metropol on August 17, 1994. That was the show that caused severe damage in my sixteen year old brain and set me on the path of being a true believer in the Punk Rock. Their first four records were a large part of the soundtrack to my late adolescence and also the soundtrack to my plummeting toward middle-age.
I saw them play every chance I could in the late 90s which was at least a half dozen times. One of which included seeing them at the Troubadour, in Los Angeles, while visiting family in the summer of 1997. I still remember the look on my dad’s face when I asked if he could drop me off on Santa Monica Blvd. for the evening so I could see Helmet, the Melvins and Regurgitator.
Over the past several years, I kept missing this new version of Helmet due to scheduling issues but I finally caught up with them when they played with Quicksand at the dreaded Stage AE, last September. Page Hamilton was backed by a different group of musicians but they were just as good a live band as I remember.
When the show at the Grog Shop was announced it definitely sparked my interest. To have an opportunity to see Helmet play in a small club like that and to be able to take my camera to the show with me was something I couldn’t pass up. Until the day of the show when I almost threw in the towel. I am so glad that I straightened myself out and made it out of the house.
Soul Blind was the opener. They’re a younger band from New York and can make quite the bit of noise. I’ll be sure to spend more time with their records when I have a chance. It’s hard to describe what they do without using too many superlatives but they have a very mid-90s sound and I liked what I heard.
I found out very quickly that I wasn’t the only one that thought going to see Helmet on a Saturday night was a good idea. The Grog Shop was packed to a level that I had never experienced before. I was able to move around during Soul Blind to get my shots in but I had a lot of difficulty getting through the crowd during Helmet’s set. I took what I hoped was an adequate amount of pictures to edit something out of nothing in low lighting and then made my way to the merch corner so I could just stand back and listen.
The level of Page Hamilton’s playing is still lightyears beyond ridiculous and the rest of the band was somehow able to keep up with him. I did notice that his vocal approach has changed which probably had to be done out of self-preservation. There’s no way he’d be able to yell like he did in the old days every night on a tour. That just becomes physically impossible after a certain age. Hell, even Keith Morris kind of talks loudly through parts of some Circle Jerks songs. Time spares no one.
The weight of what I had done that night caught up to me when they kicked into the intro for “Unsung.” It’s not even my favorite Helmet song but the bass line broke me. After hanging on for dear life to that band and those records to get me through my day for the past twenty-nine years and being able to take pictures of the band closed some sort of circle for me and the realization of it hit me like a ton of bricks. That weird teenager that struggled under the weight of his own existence for way too many years than he should have suddenly felt at home for one brief moment while standing alone in the back corner of a club watching one of his favorite bands.
I enjoy taking pictures of newer or smaller bands that people might be unfamiliar with more than the times I have to get press approval to shoot larger shows. But every so often I get to cross a hero off of the list in my head. Page Hamilton and Helmet was a big one. After shooting this show and Rival Schools (Walter from Quicksand’s other band that only seems to play shows every ten years or so) earlier this year, getting shut out of the show at Stage AE last year was rendered meaningless.
While hanging near the merch table, I ended up buying yet another Meantime t-shirt so I could retire the other two that I’ve bought over the years. I also picked up a spent drum head that was signed by the band which was surprisingly affordable. Usually when a band is selling things like that they’re cost prohibitive so I normally don’t even look at them but the forty dollar price tag was doable. I am such an uber-fanboy nerd.
After hearing some of the newer Helmet songs that night, I have gone back to give the last few albums a listen so I could get ready for the new record, Look Left, which comes out on November 10th. Size Matters and Monochrome have been in heavy rotation and are hitting much harder than I remember to the point where I can’t recall why I was on the fence about them in the first place.
I took another look at their upcoming tour dates to see if I could make it to another show on this tour. I saw a date in West Virginia and was hoping it was close but not so much. The show was in Huntington, WV which is a five hour drive from Pittsburgh and a stone's throw from the Kentucky border. As much as I would like to spend time in that part of the country to learn some history, that’s a pretty tall order to drive down and back for a show on a Monday night. If there’s another east coast leg of the tour next year, I’ll be sure to get to at least one of the shows.
Proper photos to follow eventually.
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