The funniest moment of the evening was when OUT said, “You guys should stick around for Silkworm.” Legit LOL.

Gosh, those drums are Michael’s old Sonors, right? Got a little choked up seeing that picture…

major wrote: Wed Sep 24, 2025 11:03 am The funniest moment of the evening was when OUT said, “You guys should stick around for Silkworm.” Legit LOL.

It was perfect, and OUT were the greatest openers

Frankie99 wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 11:54 pm Got to meet Randall!

Hi Frankie!









mañana

current situation. will post more later

Silkworm & Dianogah - September 25, 2025
Sleeping Village, Chicago, IL

It was a great night. Saw a bunch of FMs. Dianogah was amazing. The first part of Silkworm's set was similar to Tuesday. The second part was quite different. "Tarnished Angel", fuck yeah!

Also, I paid more attention to which guitars Andy and Joel were playing tonight. I'm pretty sure Andy was playing the Les Paul more than the Strat.

I stood right behind the soundboard, so the sound was great. My photos are meh, though.

BEST. WEEK. EVER.

Dianogah


Silkworm

Dianogah. So beautiful.

Back in Milwaukee next Friday for this:

https://www.jsonline.com/story/entertai ... 346445007/

Tried to get a Chicago or Minneapolis or Madison show as well, but the stars didn't align for that, so it's just the one show.

Will have a couple of posts from my trip to Levitation in Austin this weekend - here's the first 2 nights, Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday was a festival sponsored non fest show, then the fest began Fri.

Of these 2 nights, Mdou Moctar and The Armed were standouts - The Armed were fantastic and shoulda been on the big stage, especially because they seem like a band that will not be able to sustain this level of chaos forever.

Acid Bath was really good when they were a metal band, and boring when they did the more emotional, slower stuff. The Sword were good - I like it when they're just a straight hard rock band - they have a little ZZ Top in them sometimes that doesn't land for me. Castle Rat was fun. Had never heard of Skloss, but they were pretty cool.

Blood Incantation SUCKED. 35 minutes of sound checking watching them walk around pointing at the sky waiting on their sound guy to figure out WTF to do, because nothing was coming out of the house speakers for the first 10 minutes, and then 25 minutes of them going through each drum and cabinet and vocal mic with precise needs for each of them. They put the whole day behind and were only the 2nd band of the day. Pretentious. The music was tiresome.

I ducked during Mastadon. They're just not for me. I either don't really remember or didn't see the rest that day.

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Standouts from the Saturday and Sunday sets:

FACS on Sat nite absolutely slayed. Precision, tight, rehearsed, sounded great, a superb performance.....

A Place to Bury Strangers killed on Sunday - too bad they had a daytime slot, but at least they were indoors in the dark. The right kind of chaos and destruction combined with some framework of noise and drums. Hit me in all the places I like to be hit. I chatted up Ollie at the DBA table, he was a swell dude.

Blonde Redhead was superb as always - I've seen them a ton since the 90's. They are the only ones that do what they do.

I very rarely think about Pavement these days unless prompted, but they were great - a band I have not kept up with and haven't seen since '96? I like Pavement when they're sincere. I like their self referential irony a lot less. It seems especially dated today for reasons, but that seemed to be at a minimum

Swervedriver played outside at 4PM, which did them no favors, and it's too bad, I think their set would have been better indoors.

The raveonettes played at dusk and were great - this is the first time I've seen anyone use tracks and amp sims, etc and have it sound right. I could hear the guitar feed hitting what seemed like 3 or 4 distinct amp sounds and being pumped out in stereo as distinct sounds - a trick I've been trying to pull off in the corded amp world since forever. Credit where it's due, they did it well. Most of the time that shit sounds squishy and muddy.

Notable mentions - there were a lot of good bands on the outdoor stage I hadn't heard of - Upchuck were a good hardcore thing, Population II was a good psych thing, better than average actually. The Black Angels were great, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre remains a complete mystery to me. There is no payoff with that band, they're never as good as their bullshit suggests they should be. They legit stopped a song after like 2 minutes, yelled at each other and started it again. I can relive drama either in my head or at home.....no one is popping 20mg edibles to watch y'all squak at one another. And then the songs are all Dmaj, Gmaj, pentatonic wah solo and we're done. Don't get it.

Built to spill with only Doug playing leads? The fuck? I like that band a lot, but they need 2 guitars. Doug is great on his own, but it's better with 2 leads.

Y'all CHI peeps need to be seeing FACS every time you can.

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