Turned up around 7:30, just at the end of there still being car parks at The Palace. Walked up to Greasy Joes to meet the others and eat a cheese and bacon burger. Wandered back to the line around 8:15.
Fantomas were supposed to come on around 8:30 but didn't get on until almost 9. The pre-show entertainment consisted of old educational videos on how to avoid head-on collisions and some excellent music spun by an invisible DJ/MC.
Fantomas' set was pretty short, only around 30 minutes but while the band members packed up and The Melvins set up, Patton stayed on stage and messed with his noise making gear for half an hour, eventually merging into the Melvins set before he left. We were near the back for Fantomas and Melvins and the sound wasn't great. Melvins were far better than I expected, a lot heavier, with an excellent drummer. Fantomas were exactly what I expected, mixing tracks from the two albums and stuff I didn't recognise that I can only assume was from the new album. It sounded pretty good so maybe not. Ha. "An exercise in showing off how tight they are." Fantastic ;p
Tomahawk came on around 11:20, and the DJ/MC did a pretty good job preventing the riot during the wait. For Tomahawk we moved to closer to the front, centre stage, with a much better view of everyone and far superior sound.
The show was far better than the last time I saw them. Patton's voice was in fine form and the mix was perfect. Tomahawk have a whole extra album of material to choose from, so no need to revert to random covers and random noise.
The whole set was Tomahawk songs with only a five minute noise jam (not that noise jams are bad, but with Fantomas and Melvins before...). The first five songs had perfect sound, and the band were extremely tight. Bloody fantastic. Only around the time they played Rape This Day and Flashback back-to-back did the sound start to get a bit muddy, the playing a little loose. Given Patton had been on stage for hours they could be forgiven. The energy he threw into this gig was amazing, throwing me back to Faith No More gigs.
Favourite song on the night would have to be MayDay although Hairlip and Birdsong were pretty good. I'm sure they played all of Mit Gas except Aktion, Harlem Clowns and You Can't Win although I wasn't trying to remember. Encore of Desastre Natural followed by God Hates a Coward was much appreciated. Someone was giving Patton some lip over Desastre Natural (presumably because it's a quiet song or maybe they wanted subtitles) and Patton took the opportunity to scream the lyrics in the faces of a few (lucky?) few up the front.
I'd have the say best moment was when Patton was running around the stage with the microphone held in his mouth with his teeth while still singing.
A lot of bottles thrown during the night too, with the guitarist/songwriter hit in the head within the first two notes. His look was pretty priceless (kind of "what? oww? why?! oo-look-cranky so they don't do it again... smile.. ow... why?").
The full range of digital technology was on display during Tomahawk; various digital cameras, a few camera phones, the guy behind me was minidiscing (with a crap microphone) and I can only assume many others were too, and I think I saw a few video cameras. I expect to see the results on cv.org people. No hoarding.
Looking forward to tonight, seeing it all again. Hope to get near the front for Fantomas this time. Damn I feel old.