Meeting up with friends in San Francisco, I had about the best birthday you can imagine for my 53rd trip around the sun. After a weekend of dinner, gifts, record shopping, shenannigans, and recording a podcast and directly hitting the bricks for the show, I was excited to get back to my favorite venue in town, Great American Music Hall. Tonight was gonna be killer with Baroness playing all of their Red Album and Blue Record in full, and the brash boys Weedeater in tow. Meeting up with my photog, Anita, and my concert buddy, Laurie, we entered the fast-filling-up-to-sold-out-capacity venue.
What a difference a few weeks make. Having just seen The Sword here in August, I was glad things had cooled off a lot from three weeks ago. Baroness especially had fresh merch, and I picked up a Red/Blue tour shirt, but it was nice to see an array of commemorative gear and signed vinyls, and posters. Weedeater always has awesome merch too!
Coming on stage to The Golden Girls theme song “Thank You For Being A Friend,” you could already see a simmering moshpit starting, and folks just laughing and smiling. Weedeater is an all-out assault on your senses, the volume punishing, bordering on abuse, even with good earplugs in. Fans seem to look up from time to time to observe the band on stage, but mostly it’s just a half-room circle pit at all times! Weedeater is a powerful force of sludge riffs, screams, and Dixie’s howling delivery. Always a fun band to see live anywhere in the world.
The stage was reconfigured for Baroness, with prominent lights and not much else atmosphere needed. The venue now swelled with humans being, and I managed to get a good spot on the balcony to watch from. Show up early and see all the bands, that’s my motto!
Somehow, I have seen Baroness several times on or around my birthday, so tonight was a nice coincidence. The band came on stage and the lights dimmed, and the band warmed up for a second, not unlike an orchestra tuning up. The band started with the Red Album, and it was sublime. Bathing the stage, band members, and the room only in red light is tough on photographers, but it sure set the mood for the night!
Red is a raw, beautiful, fierce, and gentle beast of an album, going through so many emotions, and wiping away months of stress from my soul. I haven’t heard most of these songs played live since the early days of the band, and it was just amazing to hear the current lineup, nearly together for ten years now, just bang through song after song together. John Dyer Baizely only spoke briefly to the crowd, about San Francisco being like a second home to them, how Weedeater booked Baroness on their first shows and tours, and San Francisco being an inclusive, creative, and amazing place. Those early bass and drum parts, now interpreted by bassist/keys player Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thompson, doing an amazing job. They might be the best rhythm section of any rock band going today.
After a few minutes’ break after completing Red Album closer “Grad,” the lights changed to blue, and we heard the first strains of “Bullhead’s Psalm” and it was a stupendous feeling. Both Red and Blue Record, released on Relapse Records, really held up the metal underground in America in the era, along with High On Fire, Mastodon, Red Fang, Kylesa, Witch Mountain, Black Tusk, and others, helped define an American Rock/Metal sensibility at the time with a trademark sound that was heavy on fuzz majesty, riffs, and big on smarts. Cool enough for 2000s hipsters but brilliant, heavy, and killer enough to make constant new die-hard fans. No true Baroness fan likes them a little. It is total devotion, or GTFOOH! Blue was the album that really exploded in popularity (they were on Guitar Hero), and the audience was much more vocal during this second set. Fans sang, cheered the guitar heroics of Baizley and Gina Gleason, and moshed around, albeit with a bit happier feeling, if that makes sense. Blue has a few more savage riffs but Red, in retrospect, was the intentionally heavier, even a bit more Punk Rock or an album. Later Baroness albums, such as Stone (Abraxan Hymns), and Gold and Grey (Abraxan Hymns), are the direct descendants of the Zeppelin-esque “light and shade” approach for Blue. Still, it was a mighty sight to see and hear the band joyously sharing energy with the crowd and a lot of this music!
It was an amazing night of music and friends. Happy, I headed home, but not before an enormous, ravenous-looking raccoon crossed our path to the bus stop. Maybe the bands brought some of their southern vibes with them and called to the wild in the urban jungle. Hey Baroness; the ball is in your court now, but you ought to just play a concert wherever I am, on my birthday, every year from now on. This one will be hard to top!
Red Album
Rays on Pinion
The Birthing
Isak
Wailing Wintry Wind
Cockroach En Fleur
Wanderlust
Aleph
Teeth of a Cogwheel
O’Appalachia
Grad
Blue Album
Bullhead’s Psalm
The Sweetest Curse
Jake Leg
Steel That Sleeps the Eye
Swollen and Halo
Ogeechee Hymnal
A Horse Called Golgotha
O’er Hell and Hide
War, Wisdom and Rhyme
Blackpowder Orchard
The Gnashing
Bullhead’s Lament
Buy Baroness music and merch here:
https://amzn.to/4o1RnTS
WORDS BY KEEFY
Follow his work here:
PHOTOS: BY ANITA FRAUSTO
Follow her work here:
Follow her photography here: