This is going to be shorter than my typical concert recap because of a crazy busy day, but I caught (most of) Boris at the Fine Line in Downtown Minneapolis last night. They were in town for their 20th anniversary of Pink and brought Wisconsin-based stoner band Bongzilla along for the ride. Boris is a band that I had been meaning to check out for a long time, but they seemed to tour fairly frequently, so it never seemed urgent to catch one of their shows. But the stars mostly aligned, so I grabbed a ticket a couple weeks ago. I'm glad I did - the show ultimately sold out despite some other concerts around town that would seemingly compete for the same audience. But was it worth it?

I arrived a song or two into Bongzilla's set, and I honestly couldn't remember if I'd seen them before - they seemed like a band I may have caught on one of my two trips to the Psycho Las Vegas festival. After consulting my Concert Archives page I confirmed that I hadn't and was conflating them with another band - likely Weedeater, who have a fairly similar vibe. But hoo boy, it quickly became clear to me that I just do not like Bongzilla. To me, they sounded like someone mashed all of metal's most hated elements into a single band. While they're a stoner metal band, the vocalist does more of a black metal vocal style - terribly in my opinion. His voice came across as flat and limited - while most other black metal vocalists can actually sing cleanly, I got the impression that this one vocal style was all he could do. And while I like a lot of repetitive/drone-y music, their sound was repetitive in a way that didn't grab me at all. Most bands who rely on repetition or long instrumental sections are talented enough musicians that their long, vocal-free sequences can grab you with their pure musicianship or slow, gradual transformation of a musical theme. Bongzilla's music seemed built around repetition of a few simplistic bar band chords. Their sound lacked punch, and the whole thing hit me as boring, annoying, and thin. My least favorite set I've seen all year, easily. If a band truly fails to connect with me at a show, I typically don't write much about them, choosing rather to gloss over them rather than dump on what's usually a small, little known band. But Bongzilla has been around long enough that I feel comfortable saying that they should be better at this. 

Fortunately, Boris was much better. Boris has a lot of drone and repetition in their music, but it was never boring, and certainly didn't lack punch. The show was packed and sightlines at the back of the Fine Line are notoriously terrible, but they still sounded strong - although I thought the vocal mix sounded slightly off on a few songs. Boris powered through much of Pink and played a mix of other tracks (I think - I'm not all that familiar with their large catalog) that brought a good variety of faster tracks and more extended,  atmospheric songs. I did dip out after about an hour because of my aforementioned busy day today, but I'm glad I finally caught this band after meaning to for years. And as I said in the opening, chances are high that they'll be back again soon. 

There was a heavy pink motif to the lighting throughout the show, which was a nice compliment to the aurora borealis visible above much of Minnesota that night. Here are a few shots from my yard.