Helmet Me

(Taken from an email I sent to Michael Toland)

After much difficulty, I made it to the Helmet show last tonight. My buddy Mike Llorca had to cancel at the last minute. I'd have done the same thing in his shoes ('nuff said).

So I beat the bushes yesterday, asking my friends. One's into hip hop. Another said he's "too old" to go to concerts (and he's eight years younger than I). I kinda felt like I'm the sole member of this oddball headbanging cult. I couldn't even find anyone who'd heard of them when I emailed our whole staff in search of a partner. Eventually I decided to go alone, which didn't thrill me since the Gypsy Tea Room is in Deep Ellum, a decidedly rough area. Managed to park close and dart inside through a steady rain. The Tea Room reminded me of the late Liberty Lunch in Austin, though not quite as much of a wreck. Crowd started filling in early, and they were fairly receptive to a bludgeoning set by openers Totimoshi (think Kyuss circa Sky Valley). Pretty cool little trio there.

Techs started doing their thing between bands, and after one strum of the guitar I was thinking HOLY CRAP IZZIT REALLY GONNA BE THAT LOUD?? Had two sets of good earplugs with me, though, and they served me well enough.

Helmet hit the stage with "Pure," which I gather has been opening most or all of their shows. Big, big sound. Other folks were singing, a rough little pit started, and suddenly I'd found the other members of my cult (the place was full). It felt good. The band clearly had a ball. Hamilton was chatty with the crowd, having some belly laughs, clowning around much more than I would have expected. Traynor and Frank Bellow seemed almost ecstatic to be doing what they
do. Bellow especially seemed to just give off HOLY-SHIT-I'M-IN-HELMET vibes. Yelling, jumping...

Lotta fun.

They did a good cross-section of stuff, though by my count they did eight songs from the new CD, which is about three too many. It went from "hey these are the three songs I know I like" to "wow--THIS is a bold choice" to "okay this is too much." Five songs would have served well the purpose of illustrating the meat of the songs minus the studio sheen. The attitude very much seemed to be "we like this CD, and damn it, we think you should too." The new songs really didn't slow the momentum like you'll see sometimes when an artist plays the new stuff (aka the time to make a bee line for the pee line). Just too much muscle for a complete flop.

They certainly hit the appropriate high points in their 75-minute set. The band is tighter than hell, and they enjoy playing together. Frank Tempesta is better than I gave him credit for, but I'd still prefer Stanier for his more distinctive drum tones.

Will review for High Bias (http://www.highbias.com).

Oh, I made it to/from the club without incident--sort of. Folks clearing out of the club and getting in their cars were being approached by these trashy looking guys (homeless? dealers? both?). Even as I was IN MOTION backing out, one was banging on my glass, and I was yelling at him, "Don't F*CK WITH ME MAN! JUST DON'T F*CK WITH ME!" He eventually got the
message.