The Jesus Lizard Live

I think it’s safe to say that in all of the live rock shows that I’ve seen, at least two of the top ten of “best shows” would be reserved for the Jesus Lizard.
Prior to the penultimate performance that I saw on Saturday night, I’d seen them a total of three times, one for each of their best Touch & Go studio albums: Goat, Liar, and Down.
On the first show, I was close to the stage and suddenly found myself holding up David Yow over my head. By the end of the show, I’d gotten intimately close to his genitalia and found an efficient way to pass a small, sweaty man overhead. During the times he was on stage, I had time to breathe and watch three incredible musicians pounding out a menacing arrangement for their most recent album.
David called some dude “Shitmouth”
The second show was in the same venue. On the way up, a loud metallic jackhammer sound came from the engine compartment over the blaring of Goat on my factory cassette player. It was a hideous sound, and I understood the engine of my Ford Ranger pick-up truck was in grave danger.
I continued driving.
As long as I maintained a steady speed, the truck was tolerable. But the moment I accelerated-particularly when going up a hill-the sound returned.
The good news was that the truck was under three years old and still had time on its factory warranty. If I ruined the engine, I was damn sure going to make the Ford Motor Company paid for the repairs.
When I got to the club, I snuck it a small airline bottle of vodka. I made my way towards the front of the stage and stuck through the endless ebb and flow of bodies, capturing the smell of beer, cigarettes, and sweat in the process. I handed Yow the small bottle. He looked at it and considered it for a few verses. He then opened the bottle with his free hand and sprayed it over a few lucky souls being smushed in the front row.
I guess he didn’t like Absolut.
David yelled “Hey shitmout!” at someone during the set.
The third show was at First Avenue in Minneapolis after the release of Down. The main room is a great venue; it’s still a trip to consider how Purple Rain was filmed there. Anyway, that particular night was all about the Lizard. My girlfriend and I circled around the back of the club looking for a place to sit-there weren’t any.
Right as we’re walking downstairs from the balcony, the band begins playing. The first few bars of the song are dished out and within the first twenty seconds of the song, Yow had run full speed from the back of the stage and clears about half a dozen rows when he jumps into the crowd.
At one point, David responds to an overzealous fan “Shitmouth, I love you.”
And then there’s the fourth show, the reunion gig that was originally going to be the last show, but then they added a New Years Eve show and….you know the rest.
A full accounting of the show is over at Glorious Noise, but there’s always room for additional bitching.
Firstly, a kind “fuck you” to The Metro for a shitty “pre-party” that served no purpose and fucked me from getting a good view.
They gave away shit-like a reserved table upstairs-but you had to have a ticket to participate. Even though my wife and I were literally the fourth and fifth persons in the door, we got no ticket for showing up, on time, like the venue’s email monkey suggested.
More critically, the email hinted that you’d be able to get into the venue without having to wait outside in the cold, but no one seemed too concerned to actually tell us that THEY BEGAN LETTING PEOPLE INSIDE WHILE WE CONTINUED TO BUY DRINKS TO PASS THE TIME IN THE SHITTY SMARTBAR. By the time I’d hear T-Rex’s “Jeepster” for the second time (seriously, they put in a mix cd when we walked in, pressed play and pushed the repeat button). Ironically, “Jeepster” had already played on my IPod during the trip over to Chicago as we played all of the sequential song titles beginning with the J section.
It was hell when we went through a bunch of reggae songs that all began with the word “Jah.”
When we finally went upstairs and noticed people walking up to the main room, we found the only visual spot we could. We were slightly behind a fairly clean grad student couple and in between a couple of silly longhairs in their early 30’s. I reminded myself of the time I approached thirty with long hair and recognized the moment when I finally cut if off. Some people may think that it had something to do with my advancing age or desire to better mesh with the corporate culture. The reality is that it was my Grandma fault. She noticed the top of my hair thinning once as she walked downstairs and felt the need to mention my growing bald spot out loud.
She should have the same talk with the dude next to me at the JL show.
My wife hated it (more so because of the longhaired dude and the fact that she had to stand the entire time) and I was a tad disappointed.
The opening band Triclops had a few flashes of cleverness, but the lead singer used a dorky pitch shifter on his mic and would jump down into the security row in front of the stage for dramatic effect.
Then Yow was in a chair for the entire night and drank bottled water.
At one point, Yow screamed, “Shitmouth, I love you. Will you marry me?”
It's great that the band is back together, albeit for a short while, but there is no doubt that the prime era to see the Jesus Lizard was back when they were a hungry, working unit. Today, they're merely a glimpse into the kind of danger that occurred each night when they took the stage.
Today, I would have definitely stopped the truck and called AAA.

Poster by Diana Sudyka