Jonny Numb

On October 6, I saw Helmet for the third time. The first time I saw them, it was at Sonar in Baltimore, a venue notable for having a parking lot directly beneath the overpass that feeds into the city proper. While Sonar closed its doors years ago, I look back fondly on that space, where I got to see many bands live for the first time: Ladytron, The Genitorturers, Shellac, and even Atari Teenage Riot. Great shows, all.

The second time I saw Helmet was at The Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA. Not unlike Sonar, this venue was unique in that it had a Main Stage area on the second floor, and the more intimate “Lizard Lounge” on the ground level. (To clarify, though, both spaces were pretty small.) When I saw Helmet there, they were doing an anniversary tour for their 1994 album, Betty. I’d have to search my ticket albums for the exact date, but I’d guess that show was sometime in 2014. They played the album in its entirety, followed by a separate set of songs that spanned their back catalog.

My decision to see them at Mickey’s Black Box for their current “Look Left Tour” was a bit of lark: it was on a Friday before a 3-day weekend; I’d never been to the venue (located in Lititz, of all places); it was a short drive (39 minutes); and hey, Helmet puts on a good show! An interesting factoid about the venue: it apparently serves as a low-key rehearsal space for big-name musical acts prior to Stateside tours (which makes sense, as MBB and its self-contained campus of hotels and shops are right on the border of innocuous Farm Country, PA). According to my S.O., K-Pop sensations BTS rehearsed there before a recent U.S. tour.

In any case, after some technical snafus at the very beginning of Helmet’s set, and a fat guy who came out of the men’s room screaming, “I WANT TO DIE! I WANT TO DIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” loud enough to cut through the music and draw the attention of the crowd and security alike, it was a good show. Frontman Page Hamilton may not be able to sing some of the higher notes from the band’s mid-’90s heyday, but his guitar proficiency is still top-notch. When the band went into songs off of Betty and especially Aftertaste (the first Helmet album I ever purchased, circa 1997), I got chills that blasted me back to the era when I first discovered them and found myself thinking, “holy shit, these guys are good!”

And, as a pit broke out later in their set, I noticed a guy with an actual helmet on his head.

I also took the opportunity to pick up their last 3 albums (which, at $10 a pop, were hard to pass up). I had previously owned Monochrome and Seeing Eye Dog, but traded them in one of my life’s many moments of weakness (ask me about the times I traded albums by the Dead Kennedys, Chemlab, and Skinny Puppy for a few bucks, only to wind up missing and re-purchasing them years later). I also got their 2016 album, Dead to the World, which I’d never owned. Helmet’s latest, Left, will be released on November 10, and sounds interesting based on what Hamilton’s been teasing in interviews.

(Header photo copied from ESP Guitars.)

(No pictures or video this time out; I just wanted to take in the experience and decompress a little. So enjoy this vintage footage of a song they didn’t play at last night’s show!)