Gig Review: Weird, Wonderful, Silly, Sincere, Mesmeric, Mind-blowing: Mr Bungle/Melvins LIVE!

I am still bringing gig reviews back. Every gig I go to I’m going to write about. Because that’s how it should be. We should have nice things. Like gig reviews. Gig reviews are nice things to have.

Mr Bungle w/ Melvins

The Town Hall, Auckland

Sunday, March 3

When Mike Patton joined Faith No More the band had a huge hit with Epic and the album it was taken from, The Real Thing. As part of the wave that had built behind the band, Patton got his other group signed: Mr. Bungle. They released their self-titled album of cornball circus-funk and Zappa-esque musical madness. They could turn on a dime; musically brilliant, and always sonically interesting. Three albums in total and they were done. But the backstory is that they were actually Patton’s teenaged musical project. He would go on, post-FNM, to lead several other groups-as-side-projects (Fantomas, Tomahawk) and pop up all over the place, including his regular gigs as soundtrack composer and record label co-owner (Ipecac).

During the pandemic’s weirdness, the return of Bungle felt perfect as part of the ongoing fever dream. They were recast as a Death Metal Supergroup, original members Trey Spruance (lead guitar), Trevor Dunn (bass) and Patton (vocals) joined by drummer Dave Lombardo (he of the mighty Slayer), and rhythm guitarist Scott Ian (yes, he of Anthrax). This was the band assembled to re-record and officially release The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo.

Bunny was first written and recorded — never officially released — in the 1980s. The antecedent was Slayer, hence Lombardo (also a former member of Fantomas) being recruited to reimagine the rhythms.

And so, that’s the backstory behind the version of Mr Bungle that is out on the road; the first time any version of Mr Bungle has played in New Zealand.

They are joined by friends and label mates, the mighty Melvins. King Buzzo and his crew are (reluctantly) grunge icons, on account of Kurt Cobain being a fan, Nirvana even had a stint with Melvins’ Dale Crover behind the skins.

Anyway, Buzz and band have been making the same record again and again — and thank god for that — for some 40 years now. Always brilliant, always inimitable, full of sludge and slow-grinding riffs and drums. And I love the Melvins, and often think if the world ends, so long as it’s a Melvins tune playing we will be okay.

Their opening set, tonight, is a reminder of all that is so great about the way the Melvins do it. Buzz is playing for no one at all and for everyone in the room, simultaneously. He couldn’t give a fuck to be there, and it also means the world to him. He moves around the stage in circles, his grey hair a wild stallion of its own, sometimes it’s as if he has a string tied to his back, the way he moves forward just as far as he can and then is seemingly dragged back to another position. The Melvins grind through classics from their albums Bullhead (1991), Houdini (1993) and Stoner Witch (1994), even stopping by 2004’s Lustmord collaboration, Pigs of the Roman Empire (for The Bloated Pope), and 2014’s Hold It In (for the set-opening, Sesame Street Meat). You can never really ask for more from the Melvins, because their job is to win everyone over. And they always seem to do this. I’ve seen them as headliners before, but most impressively as openers — they wiped the floor with Tool’s ass back in the very early 2000s. Tonight, they battle a muddy sound mix to be the first victors of the evening. And a huge treat was Bungle’s Trevor Dunn (and Buzz’s Fantomas bandmate), joining them for the set-closing stomper, Boris.

A break, of course, and then Mr Bungle comes out to Also Sprach Zarathustra, which quickly morphs into their own Grizzly Adams. They play several songs from the Bunny demos in quick succession (Anarchy Up Your Anus, Bungle Grind, Eracist), as Patton ducks and dives, and drops down into a nearly predatory hunch. He is a king on any stage with any configuration — and here, after a small handful of songs, he tells the audience it is nice to meet us, and gets into some brief, silly, engaging banter a few times.

More importantly, he is both lead singer and band conductor; Trevor Dunn and Trey Spruance feel like the co-musical directors, but Patton knows every beat of every tune, using his microphone to add accents to Lombardo’s playing at times, using hand gestures to issue stops and starts. There with a shirt unbuttoned over a white top, and occasionally moving into a near hip-hop bounce he takes us back to his earliest days in Faith No More. But of course this band doesn’t actually play any Faith No More, why would they, they never have…they do, however give us a Slayer cover (Hell Awaits) and before that something originally from Corrosion of Conformity (Loss For Words). As always, Patton can move from a whisper to a scream, he issues all manner of shrieks and noises, in and around actually singing. He can croon when he wants to, and he can bellow and chant, and his phenomenal vocal technique is always just astounding to take in. We get a callback to the sort of FNM shenanigans of covering Easy, when mid-set, the band plays a sincere cover of Spandau Ballet’s True, Patton in fine voice, almost blue-eyed soul, and most certainly endearing pop. This with all the banshee wailing either side of it. It’s a magic trick. Seriously.

Dunn is deep down in the bottom end of things, stirring the porridge and keeping it thick. Lombardo is blisteringly quick across the toms, and locks in every time straight away as he offers the shotgun double bass drums and train-track hi-hats. And Spruance dazzles across the frets, his dextrous fluidity, while Ian keeps the riffs taut. It’s almost as if you have one person uncoiling the wool on one side of the stage, making his pretty patterns, then someone tightening the winch back up across on the other side of stage.

This is a supergroup of legends and the way they play metal is almost like jazz. Of course, the players have things like Morricone and John Zorn on their mind, and in their record collections, just as much as any of the Slayer or Bad Brains (or Melvins).

More hardcore covers, (7Seconds’ You Lose and Crumbsuckers’ Just Sit There). And then it’s to what, for many, might be the song of the night. My Ass Is On Fire from the self-titled Bungle debut. The album that first introduced this band to so many of us in the crowd. Spruance’s tone and textures brilliant. And, wow, just what a fucking band!

The encore begins with another silly sincerity — Patton going deep on the Olivia Newton-John Grease staple, Hopelessly Devoted To You. And then into Sepultura’s great Territory. The crowd chanting along with the lyrics, “War for territory”, the song a protest.

The old bud from school I’d just bumped into, speaks in one constant rhythm, right into my ear. He leans right in, his arm around my shoulder, and says, “man, all around the world, people are fighting for territory — still. Forever. And we are here right now listening to Mr. Bungle. We’re the fucking lucky ones. The luckiest people alive”.

How true. How wise. How great to see him. And of course them: Both Bungle and Melvins. What a gig. Like a dream. They came. We saw. They carved it all the way up.