Clutch
By Megan Randall
“This is our first show in three months and it DEFINITELY feels like it,” exclaimed Clutch front man Neil Fallon. I hate to tell you, Neil, it didn’t. The band commanded the Sawyer Point stage on Day 3 of the Bunbury Music Festival just like they always have—with extreme energy and enthusiasm that pulls you in like a cosmic orbit.
Why catch a Clutch show? The songs are lyrically brilliant and the music is flat out fun. Bunbury was no different. Kicking off their setlist with “H. B. Is In Control,” and pounding all over the stage, Neil, Tim Sult (guitar), Dan Maines (bassist), and Jean-Paul Gaster (drums) play each song with an intensity not matched in this genre. Who is H.B. by the way? Hieronymus Bosch, the classical Dutch painter. The song makes utterly no sense except that someone is having a pretty bad night at a diner with a medieval ghost.
Following that up with “Goul Wrangler,” “A Quick Death in Texas,” and the fan-favorite “Electric Worry,” the set included everything to please new and old Clutch fans alike. They closed their set with this reviewers personal favorite, “X-Ray Visions.” There’s seriously something amazing about a song with the ghosts of Ronald and Nancy Regan as protagonists.
Do find a show on their current tour to catch; you won’t regret it. The band is touring overseas currently but will return stateside in July to co-headline a tour with Killswitch Engage. You can get their latest album, Book of Bad Decisions, now.
Photographs by Shawn Wiseman & Michael Deinlein
