Who: Mr. Bungle, Melvins and Spotlights
Where: Mission Ballroom. Denver, CO
When: May 16, 2023
In 2020, about one month before we were all quarantining in our respective hovels, Mr. Bungle played their first live show in 19 years at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. It was the first show of a seven date/three city run that really none of us ever expected to happen. The shows were designed to celebrate Bungle’s humble beginnings as a rag-tag bunch of teenagers from Eureka, California trying their hand at being a thrash band. This culminated in Mr. Bungle’s first demo tape, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. It was rough. Real rough. But the seeds of promise were there. Cut back to 2020 and Mr. Bungle releases Wrath re-recorded in all its thrashy glory but this time around they had the help of 2 masters of the genre, Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Scott Ian of Anthrax.
Well, like anything else Mr. Bungle does, you can never predict what happens next. So in January 2023 when they announced a full-scale US tour revisiting the Ipecac Geek Tours of olde, and again focusing Bungle’s thrash years, it was a pleasant and welcome surprise indeed.
Which brings us to the Mission Ballroom Tuesday night. Expectations were high and met almost immediately with Spotlights, the first band of the night. Their new album Alchemy For the Dead is a monster and well worth picking up for fans of dark, heavy beauty.
Up next were Melvins, a band that after 40 years still defies categorization but should also need no introduction. The core duo of King Buzzo and Dale Crover are still absolute forces of nature holding down the tone and setting the pace while bassist Steven McDonald is a whirling dervish all over stage left.
Seeing Mr. Bungle live is always an experience and this incarnation of the band, with old friend Lombardo and new friend Ian is no difference. Dave Lombardo’s status has reached deity levels through his work with Slayer alone. But it must be noted that his myriad of other work, including his latest masterpiece of a solo album, Rites of Percussion show just untouchable the man truly is with his instrument. Scott Ian we all know as one of the best rhythm guitarists in metal but it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that Trey Spruance, (part of the core founding triumvirate of Mr. Bungle - along with Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn) is an exceptional thrash guitarist, and a true pleasure to witness live.
The bulk of the band’s set was of course made up of Raging Wrath tunes, along with covers from the likes of Cro-Mags and Sepultura and Slayer. The latter, as we all know with perpetual shit-disturber Patton will never be played to completion. In this case, going from the three minute Hell Awaits intro directly into Seals and Croft’s “Summer Breeze”.
The Geek Show tour continues through most of May with another Bungle tour on the east coast later on in the year.
Kevin Fitzpatrick
• May 18, 2023
