Wait, I Got It! Call It Sweatpants Rock!

When scribes try and pin down the Meat Puppets sound, it's usually with little success. Descriptions span from "country-fried punk" to ZZ Top comparisons. It also seems to be universally acknowledged that their sound is truly unique. Well, last night at the Bluebird theatre in Denver, I believe I came up with a tag that can now be used by all with confidence. I call it sweatpants rock! Look at the picture of Curt for proof (I'll admit, it's kind of hard to tell from the picture. My beer drinking skills were much better than my picture-taking skills last night.). Not only that, but ST saw them in NY a few months back and the same thing: sweatpants. People sometimes wonder out loud why the Puppets never got their due. Well, rock stars don't wear sweat pants. But god bless Los Puppitos!!

Fuck the style mavens who would declare these lads as unhip. Curt's guitar mastery renders all such opinions moot. I've seen the Puppets about a half a dozen times over the years, and I have to say last night might have been the most mind blowing. Playing that shit on an acoustic guitar should not be possible. Glad to see Curt put the Strat away (unlike the show at the Gothic earlier in the year) for a more robust sound. Chris seems to be doing fairly well these days too and more than held his own on the bass and occasional vocal. The set list was heavy on the II album, but also featured songs off of Up on the Sun (title track), Huevos (Look at the Rain!), Forbidden Places (Sam - sorry no Popskull, CL), Too High to Die (Backwater), and even Curt's solo album Snow's title track. Due to the long end jams to almost every song, the sheer amount of tunes could have been larger in my opinion, and is probably why the Out My Way / Mirage territory was not mined. But these are very minor quibbles in any otherwise brilliant performance. Any doubts that the brothers Kirkwood have lost anything were obliterated, as was my mind.....