Clutch + The Sword @ Stubb's, Austin (10.04.2008)

Good god I needed this show. In the six months since my daughter's arrival robbed me of catching Ministry and Meshuggah in Austin (on Ministry's last tour ever, no less!), I've hit the worst concert-going dry spell I've had in years. The last band I caught was The Mars Volta on April 10th, five days before the aforementioned robbery, so to say that I was in need of a show would be a bit of an understatement. Luckily for me, Clutch was coming to my rescue, and as if to ensure that the live music resuscitation was complete, they were bringing hometown favorites The Sword along with them. I couldn't wait!

This past Saturday, the two bands rolled into Stubb's on a perfect early-Autumn Texas night. The temperature was in the high 60's, a nice breeze was flowing through the place, the High Life was nicely chilled....it was the makings for a great night. And oh my did they light the place up!

The Sword went on about 8:15pm, after Graveyard had done an opening set (I know nothing of Graveyard, and did not catch their set). J.D. Conrise greeted the crowd with "We're The Sword, and we're from HERE!", to which the crowd went nuts. They then wasted no time launching into a steller set:

01. Celestial Crown/Barael's Blade
02. The Frost Giant's Daughter
03. How Heavy This Axe
04. Iron Swan
05. Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperzephyrians
06. Maiden, Mother & Crone
07. To Take The Black
08. ? (Some Kiss cover)
09. Freya
10. The Horned Goddess
11. The Black River
12. Winter's Wolves

Clearly, this was no warm-up band routine, this was double-bill material. I've literally seen The Sword more times than I can remember, and I'm almost positive that this is the longest set I've seen them play. Nicely rounded off with five songs from Age Of Winters, six from Gods Of The Earth, and a random cover thrown in there. I would have rather seen another of their own songs instead of the cover, but hey whatever, it was still rocking.

It was so great to see The Sword playing a venue like Stubb's, the sound was spectacular! Every other time I've seen them (save one) its been in a small packed venue, where the sound can be very hit or miss. The last couple times were mostly miss, with the guitars cranked so loud and distorted that everything pretty much just got lost in a wall of noise. Not so on this night, the sound was immaculate. The drums and bass were clean and rumbling, and both guitars were nicely balanced, with the higher lead stuff coming through clearly over the monolithic crunchy rhythm. Conrise's vocals were a little off here and there, as usual, but were within the mix enough that they weren't a distraction. Visually, for the first time that I've ever seen, they actually had a light show going on. Nothing too extravagant, mind you, but some basic swirling and strobing lights appropriately placed to lend a bit more texture to the medieval metal ass-kicking. I thought it was well done. And as far as energy goes, it seemed like the guys in the band were really excited to be playing back in Austin again. Their rise over the past couple years has been nothing short of meteoric, traveling all over the world with some pretty big bands, so seeing them reconnect with such an obviously appreciative Austin crowd was great to see. Overall, a mighty fine performance.

Next up, Clutch! Fallon et al came on a little after 10pm, and played until 11:45pm. Here is the setlist:

01. Small Upsetters
02. Ship Of Gold
03. The Elephant Riders
04. You Can't Stop Progress
05. Power Player
06. The Devil & Me
07. The Great Outdoors
08. Smoke Banshee
09. ? (Something instrumental I didn't recognize)
10. Basket Of Eggs
11. Eight Times Over Miss October
12. Burning Beard
13. Child Of The City
14. ? (Another instrumental number I didn't recognize)
15. The Swollen Goat
16. White's Ferry
17. La Curandera
(break)
18. Texan Book Of The Dead
19. Cypress Grove

Definitely a short set, by Clutch's standards. The two other times I've seen them were of the "An Evening With Clutch" ilk, where they play two full sets in one night for a total of 25-30 songs. Being that this was a three band night, it made sense that they would have to cut it back to a more earthly set. Aside from the length, I will also mention that it would have been nice to have more material from Robot Hive/Exodus, which is my favorite Clutch album. But I knew that they had kicked out their apparent drunkard of a organist, and aside from a couple dates where they borrowed Per Wiberg from Opeth (!), I hadn't heard of any replacement yet, so I figured the RH/E material may be limited a bit.

But no matter, those minor details aside, I thought the set they put together was fantastic. They definitely hit my personal favorites from the latest album (From Beale Street To Oblivion), particularly with the fun rocking of "Power Player" and some awesome jamming on "White's Ferry". From their back catalog it was a great mixture of solid standby's ("Texan Book Of The Dead", "The Elephant Riders", "Burning Beard") and nice surprises ("La Curandera", "Smoke Banshee", and "Basket Of Eggs", hell yeah!). The pace of the set was great, excellent energy paced by a nice constant groove. They jammed out on a few tracks, in true Clutch fashion, but never wandered too far out into the weeds.

Fallon was his typical preaching self, continually walking back and forth across the front of the stage as if giving a sermon, stopping regularly to properly punctuate his points. I gotta say the first time I saw him with the beard I thought it looked pretty nappy, but it definitely lends some kind of undefinable awesome character to his stage presence. Not that he needs it, but it somehow lends some additional credibility to his wit. Sult, as usual, was an immovable object at the side of the stage, even while continually tearing the entire Stubb's audience a new one with his guitar. Gaster was pretty animated on the drums, granted in a very controlled fashion for the most part. He did get a couple short drum solo opportunities, which were just long enough to be cool but not so long that it got boring. As with The Sword, the sound was tip-top, with every instrument and the mic perfectly balanced. I couldn't find one fault with the sound, gotta love Stubb's!!

The crowd was loving it, the vibe was electric all night. Seeing as there is a definite stylistic difference between The Sword and Clutch, I kind of expected that there would be some people only interested in one band, who would go nuts for one half of the show but be fairly unenthusiastic for the other half. Nope, no way, not even close. The entire audience, which was at least as large as any I've ever seen at Stubb's, was rocking the whole time. Everywhere I looked, people were jumping and singing along, pumping their fists and beers in the air. Both bands clearly fed off that energy, kicking it up a notch every chance they got. As Fallon said at one point "Everybody havin' a good time? If not, its your own damn fault." Amen, brotherman.

Six months without a show. This was easily worth it....