Creative differences split the band in 1988, and the members spread out and changed the musical landscape. Most notably, two grunge heavy hitters started soon after Green River broke up. Mudhoney and Pearl Jam would never have existed if not for the seeds sown in Green River. While both bands have had varying degrees of commercial success over the past two decades, their roots boiled down to the raucous noises they made as Green River in Seattle so many years ago.
I mention this bit of history as a bit of a set up for this past Friday night’s reunion of Green River in Portland. They had played together only twice since their last gigs in the late eighties. A July celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Sub Pop Records got them back on stage together for an historic, albeit shortened set. Perhaps feeling the old energy take hold of them, they arranged for three shows to see how it would feel again as a touring band. If judged only by the smiles from the stage at Dante’s Friday night, it must feel great!
From the front row, during opening sets from The Night and The Darlings I hooked up with Mark and Jim, brothers from the Seattle area. They had come of age in the late eighties, having followed Green River on the bar circuit back in the day. Major fans, right down to the twenty year old Green River Tee shirt (RIDE THE FUCKING SIX PACK) Mark Arm’s autograph still indelibly scribbled on the left shoulder. They had driven down from Seattle earlier in the day to catch this show. They were driving back to Seattle the next day to catch the Saturday night version. They had held down their front row spots for several hours in anticipation of this show. They were not disappointed.
Now, I must interject one observation that I had obviously forgotten in the twenty years since I had last seen Green River. Mosh pits have, apparently, not gone out of fashion yet. I have bruises on the lower part of my oversized belly from being crushed into the edge of the stage by the over zealous crowd. My own discomfort aside, there was every reason to rock that hard tonight at Dante’s. The band hasn’t lost a step in seven thousand three hundred and four days.
Starting with Come On Down, Mark Arm strutted and screamed his way through ninety minutes of hard core grunge at its best. They stayed away from anything they had done separately and concentrated on original Green River material. There was the lead heavy P.C.C. during which Arm almost wound up in the front row with us as he slipped on the stage, teetering on the edge directly overhead. He held the note till he regained his balance, threw himself backwards towards Alex Vincent’s (aka Shumway) drum kit.
Arm didn’t say much from the stage between songs. He didn’t’ need to. Along with Vincent, Jeff Ament’s bottom end bass playing kept the band honest as it seemed to kick it up a notch with each new song. The lead guitar parts were shared pretty equally between three excellent talents. Stone Gossard was exemplary as he effortlessly killed the lead on Ozzie, but so was Steve Turner on the next song, a very memorable take of Swallow My Pride. Bruce Fairweather more than held his own, tearing up the lead on one song from their pre-Green River days called 10,000 Things. Throughout, Arm’s vocals really shone. The animated front man twisted and shrieked, shouted and bellowed like an angry mongoose in a snake pit. Particularly energetic on the last three tunes (Rehab Doll, This Town and Ain’t Nothin’ To Do) the entire band seemed like they didn’t want to leave the stage. They sort of looked at each other as if to say, “Ok, what’s next?” They left briefly, but returned for a one song encore, the name of which I could not fathom. Arm said they wanted to do more, but hadn’t learned any more songs yet. They only had one more bullet in the gun.
The ‘encore’ song was even more high energy, sweat flying from literally every band member as they jumped pogo’ed, twirled and shouted through the extended coda and power chord ending. The giant, cat that ate the canary grins on all six of them told the story from the stage. Similar toothy grins were all over the audience as they poured out onto Burnside Street into the early Saturday morning drizzle.
Hopefully, this band can get together and record some new music before the afterglow dissipates. They say styles run in twenty year cycles. Two decades have passed, it’s time to get started again.
Rock on through twenty years of fog.
- Previously From A.J.: Tom Morello @ Wonder Ballroom, Sexton/Montbleau @ The Alladin and Joan Osborne @ The Alladin
3 Responses
I couldn’t agree more, this band had the hooks to drop you to your knees and still do!
I was at this show, in the front row, next to the guys with those shirts on that were mentioned in the article, and that show fucking rocked! No conversations with the crowd, no beating around the bush, just rock at its finest. If there were any younger adults there (it didn’t look like it) I hope they heard what real music sounds like and how a band can take over a room and destroy it! Thats how its done.