Mudhoney Return To Toronto

Toronto's Quest For Fire opened Friday night's show. This quartet of Toronto music scene veterans include former members of Cursed, No No Zero, The Deadly Snakes and Nordic Nomadic. That means they know all too well what formulae work in terms of shows. Their sound was absolutely massive from beginning to end. The crowd ate up their thundering stoner rock and, halfway through their set, there was a thick cloud of pot smoke hanging in the air. There were hundreds of people at the 'Shoe by the time they finished, which meant they got a lot of applause. Some people even cheered for an encore. You'd do well to keep your eyes on these guys.

Aside from Pearl Jam, Mudhoney are one of the only Seattle grunge bands that haven't self-destructed, and you could argue that the difference between them and Pearl Jam is that Mudhoney still make great records. The sad thing is, they were never as big as they probably should have been. Thankfully, the Toronto crowd, long starved for an appearance from this now 20-year-old band, left its typical folded arms and stationary schtick at home and went berzerk throughout Mudhoney's set. If it had been any other way, it would have been an injustice. This way, it made you feel that perhaps Mudhoney are finally getting their long-overdue rewards. Unfortunately, it seemed like something was missing from their set.

The band opened with their cover of Fang's "The Money Will Roll Right In" and then blasted into "I'm Now," "The Lucky Ones" and "Next Time," all from this year's The Lucky Ones. During the first four songs, frontman Mark Arm was guitarless. With no guitar strap or patch cord confining him to one particular area, he stalked back and forth in front of the audience, making his trademark insane faces while occasionally shrieking and wailing his lyrics into his microphone.

By the time he put his axe on for "You Got It," from the band's 1989 self-titled debut, things were truly crazy with more fans crowd-surfing and stage-diving than I've ever seen at the venue. When one particular surfer with long hair, nearly knee-high Doc Martens and a flannel shirt tied around his waist boiled up out of the crowd, it was 1992 all over again.

The crowd-surfing didn't let up throughout the rest of the gig, to the chagrin of Horseshoe security. If you thought things were intense four songs in, they only got more so during the rest of the set, which did a nice job of spanning the band's career. Anything less would have been odd. This was, after all, a band who hadn't been to Toronto in a decade. Kids were hanging off the pipes below the Horseshoe ceiling as the band played "Touch Me I'm Sick" and "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More" from the Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles compilation, "Suck You Dry" from Piece Of Cake, Since We've Become Translucent's "Inside Job" and many others before leaving the stage.

Arm said next to nothing throughout the band's set (because he didn't need to), but he mentioned the 10-year absence after the band ran through "Inside Out Over You" and "The Open Mind" from The Lucky Ones and a few other songs before ending with their cover of Black Flag's "Fix Me." This was fitting, as Arm was decked out in a Black Flag shirt.

Although the set was enjoyable and the crowd reaction was very favourable, it seemed like something was a tad missing or off throughout the night. The sound levels probably didn't help — they may actually have been too loud, and at times it was difficult to hear the band. While the performance was pretty solid, you got the sense it was just another night for Mudhoney. That's too bad for a band whose recorded output has been consistently great.