Licorice Pizza: Mudhoney - Cleveland 1998 (part 2)

6/21/2008

Mudhoney - Cleveland 1998 (part 2)

All right, finally we get to part two of the Mudhoney show, recorded in 1998 at the Euclid Tavern in Cleveland.

On and off through the early part of ’98, Mudhoney played some shows with Pearl Jam. I found an interesting article written by Jonathan Valania about some of those shows. The paragraph below briefly describes Mudhoney’s set in Camden, N.J. Valania also offers up a possible reason Mudhoney didn’t achieve the superstar status they deserved.

Onstage, in the yawning emptiness of the gigantic amphitheater, the members of Mudhoney are shorter than they look on television. They play the bulk of their new album, Tomorrow Hit Today (Reprise), with dour precision. They hit all the marks, dot all the “i”s and cross all the “t”s. They are sober and professional, playing music that demands a touch of the drunken and amateurish. Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard whoots in support from the side of the stage. One guy in the front row bobs his head in approval. The only other movement from the perimeter of the stage is the girl next to him fanning herself. Arm tries to fill the vacuum with a joke. “When we started out, they said you'll never play Camden, N.J. It took us 10 years, but here we are.” (To appreciate this remark you have to understand that Camden is a violent, crack-riddled shithole across the river from Philadelphia, with a murder rate that soars higher than the Dow on a record day.) Up on the hill, on the grassy knoll of general seating located a football field away from the stage, the joke is lost on the crowd, which cheers the fact Mudhoney has finally arrived. Like low-beam headlights, sarcasm only travels about 100 feet, which may explain why Mudhoney never got huge.