Review & photos by Andrew Bansal
November 17th 2015, Teragram Ballroom, Los Angeles CA: Reunited with guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan to resume their four-piece incarnation, Raleigh NC metal giants Corrosion Of Conformity have been marching on with as much power and purpose during the year of 2015 as any band on this planet, touring Europe extensively, almost sinking Motörhead’s Motörboat with the sheer massiveness of their sonic output, then jumping off it and straight onto a US tour with Clutch and The Shrine, and signing a deal with Nuclear Blast to release new material next year. After participating in the Housecore Horror Festival, C.O.C. embarked on a US headline tour of their own in mid-November, with support acts Brant Bjork & The Low Desert Punk Band, Saviours and Mothership, and arrived in downtown Los Angeles last Tuesday November 17th for an event at the Teragram Ballroom that had all the potential to institutionalize attendees in heavy worship.
Doors opened at 7, and the show began at 8 PM with Dallas TX trio Mothership taking the stage for a righteous 30-minute slab of quintessential heavy rock. Blending tunes from their two albums simply titled ‘Mothership I’ and ‘Mothership II’, including a little Zeppelin interlude during the set-ending ‘Serpents Throne’. The band sounded nothing short of fantastic and drew the crowd towards them, as not even a single attendee disliked this performance. Mothership have been around since 2010, and have consistently and invariably played great sets every time they’ve come through town. They set the bar really high the last time I saw them at the Roxy in 2013 where they played first on a bill that featured Scorpion Child, Kadavar, Gypsyhawk and Wilson. They accomplished the exact same result here but with an even greater degree of success, as they turned out to be the best support band of this show. One cannot underestimate the sheer power of simple, honest, no-frills rock ‘n roll, and this Mothership set proved as much.
Photos:
Set List:
01. Lunar Master
02. Hot Smoke & Heavy Blues
03. Win Or Lose
04. Good Morning Little School Girl (Ten Years After cover)
05. Serpents Throne
Next up, California-based group Saviours stepped up to bring their blend of stoner metal, thrash, sludge, doom and hardcore punk. Straight after that Mothership set, Saviours came across as more abrasive but simultaneously more melodic, owing to the twin guitar harmonies. Saviours have been a band for more than a decade and enjoy quite a fan base in Los Angeles. Following the release of their stellar fourth studio album ‘Death’s Procession’ (2011) and subsequent touring, they went away briefly, but are back with their fifth full-length album ‘Palace Of Vision’, released on October 30th 2015 via Listenable Records. They played a thoroughly enjoyable and excellently attended comeback show at Complex in the summer of 2014, and have resumed touring activities this year, doing a couple of US West Coast shows with Danzig earlier in 2015, and now embarking on a full US run. They focused largely on the new material in this set but threw in the old tunes as well, going as far back as the 2005 debut EP ‘Warship’ for the song ‘Circle Of Servants Bodies’. The ‘Death’s Procession’ tune ‘Gods End’ was a glaring omission from the set, and in my opinion no Saviours show should exclude that song, but aside from that, it was great to see Saviours back in the thick of it, rocking their socks off and doing it as well as they’ve ever done.
Photos:
Set List:
01. Circle Of Servants Bodies
02. We Roam
03. Burning Shrine
04. Devil’s Crown
05. Palace Of Vision
06. Hell’s Floor
07. Crete’n
The crowd had been warmed up excellently by the two opening acts and were ready for the show to reach the next level, but were met with a completely contrasting vibe, as Brant Bjork And The Low Desert Punk Band orchestrated a very chilled-out jam session. The band opened for the three-piece C.O.C. at the Roxy in 2014 and found themselves in a similar position here, but in front of a bigger crowd and a slightly different demographic. Brant Bjork is a Palm Desert stoner rock veteran of Kyuss, Fu Manchu and Vista Chino fame, but also has a prolific solo career with 10 albums altogether, some released under different monikers. ‘Black Power Flower’, the first album under the ‘Brant Bjork And The Low Desert Punk Band’ name, came out in 2014 and this set featured tunes off of it along with other selections from Bjork’s career, including quite a few off of his ’99 debut solo effort ‘Jalamanta’. He sounded great on guitar and vocals and so did his band mates on their respective instruments, but as solid as the performance was, the crowd perhaps wasn’t ready for such a low-energy set at this point in the evening. Besides, seeing their fifth member i.e. the dude with the camcorder hogging the limelight all over the stage and acting as a cheerleader for the band on the microphone was a bit unexpected and unnecessary. With that said, Brant Bjork & The Low Desert Punk Band deserved the main support slot based on seniority alone, and if desert rock jams are your thing, this is your band.
Photos:
Set List:
01. Low Desert Punk
02. Buddha Time (Everything Fine)
03. Controllers Destroyed
04. Stacked
05. Too Many Chiefs … Not Enough Indians
06. We Don’t Serve That Kind
07. Boogie Woogie On Your Brain
08. Lazy Bones / Automatic Fantastic
09. Stokely Up Now
This being the first visit to the Teragram Ballroom for a majority of attendees, everyone seemed to have formed a positive first impression of this venue and were having a great time, and by the looks and sounds of it, wouldn’t complain if more shows were booked here. This relatively new 600-capacity ballroom in downtown Los Angeles certainly has a vibe of its own which separates it from its surroundings completely. The architecture of the main concert hall focuses heavily on sound-proofing, as it needed to specially on this occasion, considering the magnitude of the sound it was about to be hit with.
At 11 PM, Corrosion Of Conformity took the stage and truly brought the heavy through a 14-song set of gems representing the Pepper Keenan fronted version of the band. C.O.C. hadn’t toured with this lineup for nearly 15 years, but undoubtedly arrived in Los Angeles at the perfect time for all the fans in attendance, having been in the groove and gelling together over the past few months of endless touring. Along with the flawless musicianship, C.O.C. boast of massive stage presence resulting from the combination of Pepper Keenan, Woody Weatherman, Mike Dean and Reed Mullin. It’s an aspect that’s perhaps not talked about as much, but it’s the difference between being a generic stoner rock band and being C.O.C.
The audience greeted the band with deafening roars, so much so that it caught Pepper Keenan off-guard and he didn’t hold back in expressing his pleasant surprise when talking on the microphone. Heads were banging and fists were pumping throughout the set, and the song ‘Paranoid Opioid’ garnered the most notable mosh pit. Reunions are often overhyped and do not deliver, but Corrosion Of Conformity’s reincarnated four-piece lineup has met and exceeded all expectations, at least as a live band. Besides being a positive step for the band as well as for its longtime fans that saw this lineup in the ’90s and were waiting for its reunion, it’s a major boost to the stoner/sludge metal community and the heavy metal scene in general, because younger fans who missed that period entirely can now flock to witness it in all its glory.
In all honesty, nothing defines heavy music more than a Corrosion Of Conformity headline show, and some locals were quoted admitting that it was a far better experience seeing the band headline this room than opening the main stage at the recent Knotfest. Everyone reading this owes it to themselves to see Corrosion Of Conformity headline a concert, and those in North America have a chance to do it sooner than anyone else.
Related links:
Interview with Reed Mullin
Interview with Pepper Keenan
Photos:
Set List:
01. These Shrouded Temples
02. Broken Man
03. Senior
04. Heaven’s Not Overflowing
05. Long Whip / Big America
06. Wiseblood
07. Seven Days
08. Paranoid Opioid
09. 13 Angels
10. Albatross / Sabbath
11. Stonebreaker
12. Who’s Got The Fire
Encore:
13. Vote With A Bullet
14. Clean My Wounds
Remaining Tour Dates:
11/18/2015 Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
11/20/2015 Venue Nightclub – Vancouver, BC
11/21/2015 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
11/23/2015 The Summit Music Hall – Denver, CO
11/24/2015 The Riot Room – Kansas City, MO
11/25/2015 Mill City Nights – Minneapolis, MN
11/27/2015 Rtr 20 – Racine, WI
11/28/2015 The Odeon – Cleveland, OH
11/29/2015 Underground Arts – Philadelphia, PA
12/01/2015 Opera House – Toronto, ON
12/02/2015 Machine Shop – Flint, MI
12/03/2015 Altar Bar – Pittsburgh, PA
12/04/2015 Gramercy Theater – New York, NY
12/05/2015 Brighton Music Hall – Allston, MA
12/07/2015 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
12/08/2015 Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
12/09/2015 Shaka’s Live – Virginia Beach, VA
12/10/2015 Lincoln Theatre – Raleigh, NC
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