The miracles of the Meat Puppets are many.
That the Kirkwood brothers and their music have survived for three decades at the bleeding edge of indie music, inspiring the likes of Nirvana, and that their gifts remain indefinable, are just a few.
Hobart was graced by small Meat Puppets miracles at MONA last Saturday night.
After a twenty-year absence from Australia, the Meat Puppets have returned with a vengeance, filling the sandstone depths of The Void with their blistering, existential Arizona desert music.
Above lyrics of searching beauty, precise melodies ascended into a wailing barrage of harmonic, psychedelic noise. Chaotic yet absolutely in control, somehow, each track drifted effortlessly from infinity back to earth.
The set list was bare and essential. Meat Puppets classics ‘Plateau’, ‘Oh Me’ and ‘Lake of Fire’ punctuated by the rambling guitar pop of Sloop John B (The Beach Boys) and an ironically joyful version of Cathy’s Clown (The Everly Brothers).
The line up for the Australian tour is founding Meat Puppets brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood along with Curt’s son, Elmo and drummer Shandon Sahm. The Hobart show, the first of their Australian tour, absolutely dispatched any notion that the band has mellowed, slowed up, or sold out.
The Meat Puppets Australian tour continues to Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. If you live in Hobart and you missed it, you missed out.
Russell Hawkins
