Saturday night at the Fairpark Coliseum was less a musical experience than a venture into the heart of mosh-pit land. The Lemonheads had to stop the concert twice to ask the crowd to pay attention to the music. As long as the sounds stayed piercingly loud and constant enough to fuel the mosh, few people seemd to care who was playing.
It wasn't unexpected. To enter the concert, ticketholders were asked to stand in separate male-female lines to be bodysearched for mace and knives before getting their tickets ripped in half.As percussion and hysterical guitars rammed vibrations through the ears and veins of the listening crowd, a hole formed in the center of the audience, with people bouncing higher and higher on their feet and then bashing into each other. Spell, the opening band, hadn't finished their opening number before someone had to be carried out, wounded, from the mosh pit.
The second opening band, Possum Dixon, carried the frenzy along as moshers began throwing shoes, clothes, and water. Then came the crowd-surfers. Bodies went bouncing into the air. Some landed on enough upraised hands to be carried across the crowd fro several seconds. Some people were dropped on their heads. All night long, noses were bloodied and feet mashed.
After a long, sweaty 30-minute intermission between bands, the Lemonheads came onstage. "This is the place," said Evan Dando.
Two songs later, the band stopped playing. A swarm of bugs surrounded the stage and no bug spray could be found. The band members smoked cigarettes for the duration of the performance to keep the insects away.
A delerium of bodies hopping and bashing in the mosh pit paused momentarily when Evan Dando, lead singer, said, "You in the front row have the best seats in the house. Turn around and face us." A few minutes later Dando stopped playing again, and asked the crowd to stop crowd-surfing.
True Lemonheads fans were overrun by an overwhelming number of young (even pre-teenage) concertgoers who clearly preferred Possum Dixon, one of the opening bands. Possum Dixon's electrified, emotionless style, with its punky, hysterical outcrank was more dedicated to stirring the mosh pit than the musically sincere Lemonheads.
Despite the mostly unappreciative audience, the Lemonheads succeeded in performing most of the songs from their new CD as well as a handful of old favorites.
The lead singer's brand new favorite song, "Big Gay Heart" was welcomed with enthusiastic screams, as was an encore piece, "Being Around." Both of these songs lean toward country music and away from the early Lemonheads' hard-core punk style. Despite the screams of the crowd, the band was offended. The Lemonheads have expanded into meaningful, diverse musical styles but have failed to leave behind the frenzied grunge-punk crowd that filled the coliseum Saturday night.