Black As My Soul: Supersuckers and Reverend Horton Heat

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December 7, 2005

Supersuckers and Reverend Horton Heat

Monday night found me at First Avenue with a few excellent friends to see Reverend Horton Heat. The tickets for the show listed Supersuckers as the first act, with an opening act TBA.

Fortunately there was no opening act. Unfortunately, Supersuckers started their set 35 minutes late.

But this was cool, in the end. First Avenue has a big screen that hangs in front of the stage, two plasma monitors on either side of the stage, and I think one or two more traditional TV-like monitors in addition. These were playing Bullitt, and Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! Which completely rocked. I'll admit I had never seen a Russ Meyer film before. Having seen this (video only, the dialog was eschewed in favor of First Ave's usual eclectic mix—which created fun juxtapositions of its own) I have gone and ordered the DVD through the bookstore. It's so gratuitous and campy I just can't believe it.

Supersuckers are clearly a good-time bad-boy party band. They played covers and their own stuff. They're something of a fusion between country, 70s rock, and punk. Their sound dovetailed well with Reverend Horton Heats as similar, but so not the same. The bass of the singer was passed to the other three members of the band, who all played the same riff on it. It was even passed to the drummer, who struck the strings with one stick and kept the beat going with his other limbs. The drummer for the night was in fact Horton Heat's drummer—and Supersuckers said they were looking for a permanent drummer should one be willing to relocate to Seattle.

The Reverend's set was completely awesome, as always. They played stand-bys like Galaxie 500 (I *love* Galaxy 500!), Loco Gringos Like to Party, Psycho-Billy Freak Out and all the ones you would expect to hear. All so good. They protested vehemently that they don't have a set list. Reverend even claimed that if you had a printed set list from one of their shows, which they had been advised by management to do at some point, it was wrong. They always deviated. Apparently some jack ass posted on their web site that their set list hadn't changed in 10 years. People are so stupid and misguided. At this point they opened the set up to requests from the audience. Naturally The Jimbo Song came up. This is not to be confused with The Sermon on the Jimbo, which I have never heard live, but which you really need to hear.

Reverend Horton Heat also have a Christmas album, from which they played Greensleeves, Jingle Bells… and a third I can't recall. But they rock and fuck if I'm not going to have to buy that album, too.

Everything was cool except for the idiots playing My First Mosh Pit. I stood at the edge of it, not wanting to give my ground to the mayhem, but the cost was getting knocked off-balance repeatedly and the occasional drink spill. Not mine, but on me nonetheless. I laughed at the idiots who knowingly stepped into the fray with beers. The amazing and fearless bouncer to my right took plenty of hits and just shoved the kids back into the mess, keeping them contained.

All in all it was a blast. And that's why I love Reverend Horton Heat and First Avenue.

[+] Posted by Sinner, who was transgressing at the time (December 7, 2005 2:26 PM) by doing evil. [+]