Dirty Honey Plays the Desert

I went to see Dirty Honey at the Catalyst (not in the desert) this past Halloween. Of course, there were some other requirements upon the day which made arrival at the show run a tad-smidge late. I think we walked in sometime around 9pm. There had been a warmup band, which we totally missed. But upon our arrival and entrance to the venue, the floor was nearly entirely empty. There was a small gaggle of fans near the front of the stage, but plenty of room for us to squeeze right in. 

The band was flawless. Nothing out of place. Sound, lights, gear, performance, costumes, hair, muscles, all in perfect form. Yet something was still off.

The crowd was odd: a strange sort of off-beat set of somebodies, people I did not quite recognize, except if perhaps they came from an underground office space somewheres. Furthermore, the Catalyst never even came close to filling beyond 25% of its capacity. During the show, I caught a guitar pick, a drum stick, and a paper airplane setlist thrown by Marc LaBelle. Any semi-frequent concert goer would obviously know how unlikely it is to end up with all three of these coveted items from one show. Lack of competition made this happen. There was nobody there and even those that were there were not the most physically prepared for the kind of moves necessary to gather such goods, all at a single show. In contrast, I also last month went to see Coheed & Cambria opening up for Incubus at the San Francisco Chase Center. Chase Center people! 18,000 fans! Sold out! People standing in the isles! While the Catalyst (800 max capacity), where Dirty Honey played, was a desert. 

The contrast in crowd numbers between these two shows caught my attention, as all these bands, put together, generally and in a similar way, mine the past for the sounds they create.

I was actually sad to see the small numbers for DH as they were kicking the shit out of the show on the 31st. But I maybe see what was off for them. Maybe the low numbers were driven by the basic nature of the music; DH did everything they did to the letter, but were simultaneously and embarrassingly ripping off Aerosmith and GnR. 

Im not even sure how much the 1970s really matter to anyone anymore. Incubus is 90s through and through. C&C are an odd mashup of 80s (Rush), 90s (Faith No More), and 2000s metal. Could the twenty year gap between the two genres have been a factor? I notice that the 70s musical influence crops up in today’s music in a number of ways, but not really around the Aerosmith sound at all. Maybe by the fact that Aerosmith’s career spanned so many decades, that people just got sick of that sound, never able to return. I am, at the very least, certain that people are exhausted of the screechy Axel Rose/Steven Tylor vocal style (Marc LaBelle). In the end, fans are most likely flummoxed by the 70s hard rock vibe all together, especially when the artist in question is adding nothing to the genre and merely perfecting it as it stood some fifty years ago.

For me though, to go see Dirty Honey live is like traveling through a portal in time when bands like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin ruled the day. The only change Dirty Honey makes today would be their fan demographic and the tiny crowd numbers, which I’m cool with because, hey, more room for me and my nostalgic ears!