Robbie Thomas
Dirt (AIC Tribute) & ReTooled at Diesel
Gonna keep it five paragraphs here. Not up to making a novel out of this show. For the second time, I have seen Dirt (Tribute to Layne Staley’s AIC). The first time was with Sunset Blvd. at the Token Lounge. Also, a month earlier, a woman approached me saying she runs the Token Lounge and said she saw my post. She didn’t mention the possible foul thing I said about her place, though. Prior to Dirt jumping on stage, a Tool tribute called ReTooled got on stage. Prior to them hitting the stage, I didn’t look at any videos or photos of this band, I just assumed a male vocalist sounding and looking like Maynard James Keenan would be the singer. Instead, the singer was a black female.
On their Facebook page, it appears they have done very few gigs and it’s possibly the reason why they had a couple of timing issues with covering Tool. But covering Tool isn’t simple, even for a shit musician like myself, and these folks are pros. Perhaps a few more gigs and they will get the timing right. She and the band did very well. There was a couple of times the bands timing was off. The singer and bass player looked very rock and roll, but the guitar player and drummer just looked like your average guy. Here’s the website for ReTooled. When they mentioned the last song they were doing, I was expecting Sober, but instead, they did Forty Six & Two.
Dirt
Next was Dirt! They started with Dam The River (maybe I don’t give a damn anyway) and next they did Them Bones. I was very happy that they did Junkhead as well. Although Junkhead’s guitar solo is very basic compared to many guitar solos out there, I do enjoy that solo. Unlike the last gig, Dirt had quite a setlist being the headliners of this show. They also did Nutshell (sans the acoustic guitar), Would, Love, Hate, Love. They also finished the show with Man In The Box and the audience participation with Rooster. Myself and a guy who plays for the band Lisa Hurt and the Consequences wanted them to play God Am, but no luck for us.
After that was done, I went to the smoking area and me and a guy born in 1981 were talking about how we as pre-teens to teenagers at that time we never got a much of a chance or even a chance at all to see Alice In Chains with the late Layne Staley at vocals during that era. He said he was 11 when Dirt was released in 1992, I was 10. For people like me and him, this is the closest we will get to seeing Layne Staley’s Alice In Chains… In this life.
I was telling him how I discovered grunge and how before the summer of 1993 that I heard Evenflow by PearlJam. It wasn’t until I saw Plush by Stone Temple Pilots on that very summer on MTV. And despite how goofy that music video was and the late Scott Weiland’s zanyness, the song just blew me the fuck away. A couple of the band members from Prowler (Metallica tribute band) were also there. Me and the singer went bat shit crazy when we heard Junkhead. I also ran into a lady who looked like Christine McVie.
