Brightest Young Things

all photos:Josh Sisk.com
all words: Sara Hussain of Nihilitia (whom you can check out tear Velvet Lounge apart next Thursday during Bee's Knees)

Tuesday night started off something like this: I get home with one hour to get to the venue. Zoinks! Liz Lemon oxford comes off. Requisite black tee goes on. Three weeks of traveling has left me with no clean socks. Dammit. Still starving. Don’t forget to purse swap! Roll one up. Now I’m really hungry. Funnel food into mouth. Hop on the 96. Send numerous texts to Josh apologizing for being late. Wonder why I am always late. Roll up to 9:30 to see huddles of black tees outside. Endure the mysteriously slow will-call line. Inside, I can hear Intronaut ending their set. Fantastic. Seriously, who starts a show at 7:30? I walk in just in time to be swarmed by an onslaught of kids headed to the merch booth. Must have been a good set.

Savannah sludgemongers Kylesa barely had time to gas the van after wrapping up their “Southern Discomfort” tour supporting Skeletonwitch to hit the road with Mastodon. Nonstop - that’s just how they do. Their years of rigorous touring have won them plenty of devotees both in the US and abroad, but Kylesa hasn’t always gotten the artistic credit they deserve. They are doing a good job of changing that with their newest release, “Static Tensions.”

On this album, Kylesa is still Kylesa, only slightly gilded. Poised to make them crossover from the heavy music scene, this album has been dangled like a carrot in front of blog-obsessed hipster metal shits who are totally going for it. About damn time, I say. They’ve earned it. What is not to love about a band with TWO drummers and a chick who can rip leads like your gross uncle rips it after Thanksgiving Dinner? God bless Laura Pleasants and her sick chops.

I’ve seen Kylesa play a few times (ranging from the Velvet Lounge to Scion Rock Fest in February), and although I love them, they aren’t the craziest band live. Aside from bassist Corey Barhorst flailing around the stage, Kylesa stays put. Deal with it. This is rocknroll. They are not monkeys here to dance for you! Except for a section in front of the stage that was clearly having a good time, the audience, in somewhat predictable DC fashion, seemed pretty wooden from the neck down during most of their set. When they finally blasted into the brutal “Hollow Severer” the crowd finally gave in and 9:30 became a sea of nodding heads. Again, the rush of kids headed to the merch table proved that people definitely liked them as much as Intronaut. (Still kicking myself for missing them. They seriously rule. )

Like Kylesa and all the other bands BYT asks me to write about, seeing Mastodon (in 2009) makes me feel kinda old. I was just coming out of college when I started listening to these dudes. My last band before Nihilitia was called In the Black Hearts of Men. Our last show was opening for High on Fire and Mastodon at this random tiny club in Dayton, Ohio. Obviously, that one is going in my collection of Grandma’s Old Metal Stories that I’m going to tell to my uninterested grandchildren some day. That was in 2002. Seven years later, Mastodon has released two albums on a major label, toured with Slayer and Metallica, did that sweet Aqua Teen song, and now I hear Crack the Skye might be coming to theaters near you? If Kylesa is hardworking, then what does that make Mastodon? Masochistic?

There’s been a lot of back and forth about Crack the Skye. I think there are two kinds of people who are dismissing the album: those who want Mastodon to remake one of their old albums; and those who can’t or won’t get into prog. I’m not an expert, but in my opinion Crack the Skye is a modern prog marvel. A huge band on a major label with mainstream success putting out a bona fide progressive rock album? Besides Mars Volta, who has done that in recent years? Musical discovery has to start somewhere. I imagine that 14-20 year olds across the country are blowing their loads to this. Think of the shit they’ve grown up on. If I was fifteen and listening to this I would be going nuts trying to figure out HOW or WHY it sounds the way it does and pretty soon I’d be buying my first Deep Purple record. That’s a good thing, wouldn’t you agree? Aside from that, I think Mastodon deserves a lot of props for delivering a solid thematic album while continuing to develop their sound without losing any of their heft.

It was sometime around 9:20 (or was it 4:20?) when the lights began to dim for Mastodon. The audience was rabid by the time the band appeared onstage. By the way, I could tell that Mastodon had truly reached a whole new level of professionalism when I saw their CORDLESS instruments. That’s high dollar. Opening with “Oblivion,” Mastodon dove straight into Crack the Skye. Did they need to play basically the entire album (or what felt like it)? Probably not, but nobody seemed to mind. Everybody around me was enraptured. Heads bobbed below. The black teed masses swayed back and forth. A swirl of kids to the right of the stage would get jabby with their elbows every few minutes. Nobody really got rowdy until Mastodon left the stage only to return to bust into a few gems off Blood Mountain, including Sleeping Giant, Wolf is Loose, and Colony of Birchmen. Maybe even Capillarian Crest? I thought the audience was done being treated to golden oldies, but they plowed forth into two (or was it three) tracks from Leviathan (Woo! Iron Tusk!!) before ending the set with March of the Fire Ants (right?) from Remission.

Mastodon, like Kylesa, doesn’t need to run around the stage to entertain. I love watching bassist Troy Sanders’ looming figure crouched down around the mic playing his bass so low it is resting on his thighs. He’s definitely a member of the Lanky Bassist club, along with Krist Novoselic. I have a special fondness for singing drummers, and I was really impressed with Brann Dailor for holding down the harmonies while playing AND for running a double bass pedal for almost ninety minutes. Some people whined about the keys on stage, but I didn’t really mind it. He wasn’t blocking my view of Brent Hinds or Bill Kelliher and their million guitar changes.

Pummeling toward the very end, Mastodon delivered one crusher of a set. Everybody had that post-metal show glow. Plenty of material for the younger fans, a couple of favorites for the older set, and everyone was happy. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and my night didn’t end there. You can thank the good folks at DC9 for making my brain a little hazy afterward, resulting in me being a little hazy on which tracks they played.

Previously in Live DC:

• 2/13: LiveDC: George Clinton & The Parliament-Funkadelic @ 930 Club
• 2/13: LiveDC: Veronica Falls/ Brilliant Colors @ Black Cat
• 2/13: LIVE DC: Steve Aoki/ Datsik/ Alvin Risk @ Fillmore
• 2/13: LiveDC: The Darkness @ 930 Club
• 2/9: LiveDC: Theophilus London @ 930 Club
• 2/9: Best Weekend Bets
• 2/8: LiveDC: Kathleen Edwards @ 930 Club
• 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat
• 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat
• 2/7: LiveDC: Demetri Martin @ Warner Theatre