Punk-metal trio Melvins steal spotlight with crowd favorites at McKees Rocks' Roxian Theatre

If you like a live band’s thunderous refrains to slug you in the gut, Melvins punched your ticket Friday night.

The punk-metal trio wasn’t headlining the three-band bill this weekend at McKees Rocks’ Roxian Theatre. But, far and away, the men known as Melvins stole the show — blasting out spirited live staples, offering a deep cut or two, and ending an hour-long set with a spine-tingling 14-minute rendition of “Boris,” a song so ripe with venom and vigor that the Japanese band actually headlining Friday’s show named themselves after it.

Melvins, which formed in a pre-Nirvana Washington state in 1983 and currently operates out of Southern California, opened its set with six songs from “Bullhead,” its coming-of-age LP from 1991 — that alleged year “punk broke” with the release of Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”

That, however, was just the framework, the foundation.

Frontman Buzz Osborne did his trademark prowl on stage, thrashing around an A-bomb mushroom-cloud head of gray hair, and playfully toyed with the elasticity of songs like set-opener “Ligature.” That song didn’t break four minutes when recorded for “Bullhead” but, for Pittsburgh’s faithful, Osborne lent the proceedings an odd sort of grandeur, repeating chugging electric guitar riffs to stretch and elongate the measures of its potent verses and choruses.

Coady Willis — filling in admirably for long-time Melvins drummer Dale Crover, to whom Melvins’ set was dedicated — offered a throttling, bombastic drum solo before lunging Osborne and bassist Steve McDonald into the locked grooves of “It’s Shoved,” another “Bullhead” offering that’s been a fan favorite for 30 years. (Yes, Nirvana cribbed its catchy bass line for “Milk It,” a noisy standout from the 1993 swansong “In Utero.”)

Willis, who served 15 years ago in Melvins’ now-extinct, four-man line-up, assaulted his drum kit live as if his drumsticks were lit dynamite. Like a seasoned baseball player, Willis doesn’t merely pound the skins; he tries to swing through them.

McDonald took over lead-vocal duties for “A History of Bad Men” halfway through the set and the song landed well. In case you’re wondering if the band focused on new material or wandered deep into its canon, “History” was the “newest” song Melvins performed Friday. Ipecac Recordings released it 17 years ago on the “(A) Senile Animal” LP.

In the set’s second half, Melvins darted through energetic takes on two familiar offerings from its major-label era: “Honey Bucket” from 1993’s Kurt Cobain-produced “Houdini,” and the excellent “Revolve,” from 1994’s “Stoner Witch.”

And, boy, did they close big — with not one, but two sludge-metal epics.

After Osborne’s persistent, palm-muted guitar figures gave way to the lurching, horror-film bass of “Night Goat,” the band went off-course on a meandering path — the equivalent of jamming for a group once christened with the scarlet letter that is “grunge.”

Another scorcher from ⁦@melvinsdotcom⁩, live in ⁦@Pittsburgh⁩ at ⁦@RoxianTheatre⁩. For ⁦@TribLIVE⁩ pic.twitter.com/vjCoBUoAxf

— Justin Vellucci (@JVTheTrib) September 16, 2023

⁦@melvinsdotcom⁩ closing its ⁦@Pittsburgh⁩ set at ⁦@RoxianTheatre⁩. Buzzo playing alone on stage now, an eerie close. For ⁦@TribLIVE⁩ pic.twitter.com/O9V79irNvs

— Justin Vellucci (@JVTheTrib) September 16, 2023

Near the set’s close, Willis, triumphant, hopped off his throne and jumped atop the drum kit. With McDonald, clad in a loud outfit that was part red suit, part south Asian kurta, he exited stage left about 10 minutes into “Boris.”

But Osborne, a foreboding figure at the mic in a not-so-foreboding head-to-toe black mumu, stayed behind.

There, under muted lights, he quietly eked out the song’s intentionally menacing refrain in a series of quiet miniatures, wavering between whispers and dramatic, bellowing wails.

It was an effective curtain-dropping close.

Melvins have been performing variations of this set — with a heavy focus on tracks like “It’s Shoved” and “Night Goat” — for years now in Pittsburgh, more recently at Mr. Small’s Theatre in Millvale or at South Side’s Rex Theatre, which buckled under covid-19 pandemic pressures and closed in 2020.

But, the group’s reliably dedicated fan base continues to turn out for the sermons. Lines of people a hundred deep to catch the Twins of Evil 2023 tour winded down Chartiers Avenue in McKees Rocks’ business district.

Related:

• Poppy, Pvris deliver pop, metal, experimental music in Pittsburgh show
• Aerosmith triumphantly bids farewell to Pittsburgh on Peace Out tour
• 1980s Pittsburgh rockers Haywire plan full-band reunion shows in New Kensington, Warrendale
• Pittsburgh area concert calendar

Inside, the audience skewed eclectic. There were fair doses of 40-something men in black T-shirts, many of whom have followed Melvins since cutting their milk-teeth on records like “Houdini” in the early 90s. But also cheering (and crowding the very popular merch table) were younger adults, some of whom weren’t born when the band first formed outside Seattle.

At Friday’s show, receding hairlines outnumbered mohawks — though, to be fair, only one mohawk appeared in the crowd.

And concert-goers embraced the luxuries of Roxian Theatre. An old vaudeville establishment redeveloped and reopened in 2019, Roxian lacks the grime associated with punk scenes that bred bands like Melvins. Walls lacked graffiti. Restrooms were covered in still-new, white subway tiles.

The first-floor bar offered custom drinks for the evening — $20 for a double — with names like “Honey Bucket Lemonade,” plays on song titles. A Pabst Blue Ribbon “tall-boy,” known by outsiders as a 24-ounce can of domestic beer, ran $12.

The other acts Friday at the Roxian performed admirably.

Boris live at @RoxianTheatre outside @Pittsburgh. Third of a very sludgy three-band lineup tonight nr the banks of the Ohio. For @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/xvRnzEvbCz

— Justin Vellucci (@JVTheTrib) September 16, 2023

Chicago-based duo Mr.Phylzzz opened with blasts of punk and post-hardcore abandon — think Jucifer by way of Minneapolis noise label Amphetamine Reptile Records, not so incidentally the band’s current home. Frontman Clinton Jacobs countered the weight of the group’s feedback-embracing repertoire by doing squeaky or childish voices. He and drummer Danny Sein sported collared shirts and ill-fitting neckties.

Though some of the audience cut out after Melvins ended its set, Boris’ thunderous delivery teetered on the overwhelming — and that’s a good thing.

Occasionally melodramatic — read: the drummer postured too much as she wailed the Zildjian gong — the band mirrored its set on the almost-tribal pounding Melvins introduced. Appropriately, the Japanese trio ended its encore with their take on Melvins’ “Boris,” lending the evening a sense of reciprocity.

From “Boris” to Boris and back again, the so-called “Twins of Evil” reigned with thunder at Roxian Theatre Friday night. Now, we wait for next year’s musical punch in the gut.