Dec 31, 2016 0:42:07 GMT -6

Clutch
Support: Mariachi el Bronx, the Mike Dillon Band
Date: Friday December 30th, 2016
Venue: the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, Ontario
T-shirt worn: Today is the Day "In the Eyes of God"

I got a balcony seat for this show. I've always wanted to give the balcony a shot the million times I've been to the Opera House and the few times I've been to this venue. I was able to get a ticket to the front row of the balcony for this one. A small benefit to going to shows by yourself.

I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to hate the opening acts tonight. I was going to try miss them but I got there just as the Mike Dillon Band had started up. There isn't a word to describe how horrible they were. They were kinda Primus-y, kinda Tom Waits-y, kinda Zappa-y; but with more punk elements and minus the elements that make those bands good. They were some of the worst shit I've heard in a while and may be the worst band I saw all year. I only got the title of one song called Orange Julius Caesar.

Mariachi el Bronx weren't bad. Their slower, minor key songs we're really ominous and reminded me of the darker moments of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. They were a mariachi band. That music works better in the background of a scene in a movie or in a restaurant. Or in between matches on Lucha Underground wrestling. I can't see these guys ever moving beyond being a support act but I was surprisingly fine with them. But I was pretty ready for Clutch about twenty minutes into their fifty-minute set.

I actually listened to Clutch a lot when they first signed with EastWest Records and released their debut album through that label. They changed quite a bit from that sound and their self-titled album and evolved onward from their self-titled sound. I never disliked them but they kinda fell through the cracks for me over the next twenty years. But I've heard so many good things about their live shows I figured to give it a shot tonight. I only recognized a couple of songs from their first few albums but everything else was really good. The faster songs were Neil put his guitar down were better but even the slower songs were good. I didn’t even mind the jam during D.C. Sound Attack. There are other songs that I'd have liked to have heard from the first three albums that I'm more familiar with but they vary their sets so often that wherever they play tomorrow will probably be fifty percent different.

Security was pretty tough on the crowd. “No Crowd surfing” was posted at the doors and all over and a few guys got kicked out at the beginning of the set for doing it anyway. But then it looked to me like security was giving people a hard time for moshing. Honestly, they should’ve been at the Municipal Waste show on Thursday for a taste of real crowd chaos. I think I got most of these songs right but as I said I knew a grand total of four of the songs they played.

Clutch (updated thanks to info from a guy off Facebook.
1. A Quick Death in Texas
2. The Elephant Riders
3. Your Love is Incarceration
4. the House that Peterbilt
5. Passive Restraints
6. Firebirds!
7. Son of Virginia
8. Sucker for the Witch
9. Nobel Savage
10. The Yeti
11. D.C. Sound Attack
12. Frankenstein
13. the Regulator
14. Immortal
15. The Wolf Man Kindly Requests...
[encore]
16. Electric Worry
17. X-Ray Visions


Mariachi el Bronx


Clutch


So that closes out 2016 for live concerts for me. I ended up seeing ninety-seven bands over thirty concerts this year. But I don't have to wait to long to get a start on 2017; I'm going to a grindcore "festival" next weekend.