If you live in the Spartanburg area, you know that it's rare that we get a decent act in town, let alone an act as legendary as The Melvins. Especially since our only club of note is the infamously trashy Ground Zero.

Due to the lack of advertising, I had to call the club to find out what time it was all going down. "Doors at 6, Show at 7". We got there around 6:45 and we were one of two cars there. Great. By the time the doors opened an hour later, there were barely over 30 people in the crowd. Never believe anything anyone who works at a club tells you. The show was downstairs in the pool table area, rather than upstairs on the big stage.

Trevor Dunn's (Mr. Bungle, Fantomas) Trio Convulsant hit the stage at about 9:30. They kicked out about 45 minutes of jazz-noise. Reminded me a lot of Bitches Brew era Miles Davis. I was right in front of Trevor Dunn, which was worse than it sounds, because everytime he'd break out the bow he used on his bass, I kept envisioning one of my eyes impaled on the end of it.

The Melvins started around 11:15. King Buzzo and Kevin Rutmanis were wearing what looked to be some type of monk robe with dissection diagrams sewn on. They went through a couple of songs from Houdini and Stoner Witch right off the bat. The crowd seemed to recognize those, but I think they were lost after that. The rest of the night was all sludge. They several of the weird noise/rock concoctions off of the new album they did with Lustmord. The bass player disappeared into the crowd right before the last song, seemed like the band wasn't sure where he'd gone. Buzzo went through a rap about how he made sure that they came to Spartanburg every five years, no more, no less. The last song was from Hostile Ambient Takeover. They played for nearly 2 hours, but it went by a helluva lot quicker than that.

It was definitely one of the best shows I've seen all year. Unfortunately, it's probably the best show Spartanburg will see for a long time. Well, that is unless you like crappy local black metal.

Rating: 5