It was a beautiful thing, to be sure.

The name of the first of the four total bands escapes me, but I know it definitely had the word “cock” somewhere in there. They were fronted by Bill Dolan (American Standard) and played a collection of covers, from Misfits to AC/DC, all drunken, all joyous, goods times. It was a lighthearted way to kick off the show, and they pulled in a huge crowd, Dolan being something of a Hoboken luminary. It was a vibe Manhattan‘s Choirs of Titan would more or less completely shift away from with their Wolfmother-style ’70s retro rock. Zepplin riffs through Orange amps; it’s been done by a thousand tight-pants trios before, but guitarist/vocalist Elliot had chops enough to pull it off, and I’m pretty sure I was standing behind the drummer’s father while they played their set, and that’s always charming when the parents come out. Not really my bag, but nothing against them. I’m sure they do just fine in NYC.

I asked the DJ if he had any Kyuss. He didn’t. Sleep? Nope, left it home. He had played “Godzilla” by Fu Manchu earlier, so I thought maybe I’d hit him up for some other classics, but no dice. Back to the beer line.

One thing about the older crowd: they knew how to keep the bathroom clean. Looked roughly the same at the end of the night as it did at the beginning. Apparently sometime in the years between 30-38 is when most dudes learn not to piss all over the seat/floor/surrounding walls/etc. That must be a magical time in a man’s life.

It was Kings Destroy‘s first show ever, which I hadn’t realized. I thought they’d snuck one in before, but frontman Steve Murphy (Uppercut) informed otherwise. Given that, their set was all the more impressive. It’s a rudimentary kind of riff-based doom they play, but interestingly, they do it with the presence and confidence of their many successful years in hardcore. Though they’ve been fans of the genre for a long time, they’re just getting their start in the stoner/doom world, and so watching them on stage was more or less seeing a process of discovery with the added benefit that it was already established musicians and performers doing the discovering.

They played both songs from their recently-reviewed Old Yeller/Medusa 7″, which is due out later this month, along with several others, and it was clear from the start of their set to the finish whose show it was. They’re still very much putting it all together, but I’m excited to see what’s going to happen when they put this material to tape for a full-length. The songs had a consistency of atmosphere and composition that bodes well for the album to come.

The Nolan Gate closed out the night in heavy fashion, but not before Dolan — carrying a Costco-size bottle of Jagermeister — ran back in to give Gang Green‘s “Alcohol,” played by the DJ between bands, a complementing stage show; the chorus of “I’d rather drink than fuck” being the subject of numerous gang chants into the mic, which, it’s worth mentioning, wasn’t turned on. There’s a word for that. It’s called fun. Not something you see every night at what’s ostensibly a doom show.

I hadn’t caught a set from The Nolan Gate in a couple years, and the update I gave myself after watching their set went as follows: “still doing their thing.” The trio have been plugging away in their corner of Hoboken for years now, but they’re always enjoyable to watch, and the “Fjord” shouts, which started up demanding the song before the band even started to play, turned out to be justified. They rocked, and the end of the night was, strangely, every bit as appropriate as the beginning. I did not envy myself for having the task of driving home.

NOTE:

It was under an appropriately darkening and threatening dusk that I — having slept until 1:30pm and spent most of the day wandering around semi-conscious and reeling from the night before — drearily made my way into Manhattan to catch the North America is Doomed Tour with SerpentCult, The Gates of Slumber and Atlanta mavens Zoroaster headlining. I left the house at about 8pm hit little to no traffic and pulled into a parking spot directly across the street from Webster Hall at 9:05. From outside, I could hear The Gates of Slumber riffing the start of their set. No one stopped me when I went and pulled on the wrong door of the venue.

The show was downstairs in a space they called The Studio. I’d never been in it before, but it was basically a smaller club apart from the larger ballroom. I love rooms like that. Like the Tap Bar at the old Knitting Factory. Every time I go to one I immediately start booking a multi-stage festival in my head. Upstairs I’d get High on Fire and Pentagram to headline while in The Studio I’d bring over Dozer and put them on with someone more local like Unearthly Trance or maybe Solace. Awesome. Just don’t ask me how I’d pay for it.

By the time I was inside, The Gates of Slumber were nearly done with what I hope was the first song they played. I checked the merch area for copies of their older albums, 2004′s The Awakening and 2006′s Suffer No Guilt, to no avail. Though 2008′s Conqueror didn’t do much for me in terms of repeat listens, my understanding was such that the two that came before were the way to go. Has yet to be seen (or heard, I suppose). In either case, the trio surprised the hell out of me by kicking all sorts of unholy trad doom ass on material both new and old, highlighting Conqueror cuts like “Trapped in the Web” while simultaneously promoting their forthcoming Rise Above debut, Hyms of Blood and Thunder (split your lungs therein). Skulleted guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon pulled emotive solo notes to new song “Descent into Madness” shortly after saying how glad he was people had come down to the show because he didn’t think anyone would show up, and if I wasn’t a fan before, I certainly was one by the time they were done with “The Ice Worm’s Lair.”

PBR was $5, which was better than $8 for a Stella, so I availed myself of a few as Zoroaster started setting up their lights and equipment. This was the first I’d seen them since the release of Voice of Saturn earlier this year and I chalk the fact that they didn’t have as many amps on stage up to the size of the stage itself rather than any kind of aesthetic change on the part of the band. The crowd was made up of some of the NYC stoner/doom faithful and spotty hipsters, their inexplicably gorgeous girlfriends and a fear bearded doomers like myself. At one point the door to the backstage room opened and a man came out who for a split second I thought was publicist Adrian Bromley, and I said to myself without thinking, “Oh, Adrian‘s here, cool. I’ll have to say hi,” before the reality of his death late last year set back in. That was kind of sad.

Zoroaster went on shortly thereafter and doomed out with their typically trance-inducing riffs and the unbelievably hard-hitting drum work of Dan Scanlan, without which they would be lacking more than just the translucent kit on which he wreaks his havoc. He was playing with what appeared to be a broken foot, and if it slowed him down at all, neither I nor anyone else noticed. A wall of expensive amplifiers behind them, guitarist/vocalist Will Fiore and bassist/vocalist Brent Anderson traded off vocal parts in screams and moans and Fiore‘s inebriated cleaner approach was a definite change since the last time I caught their show. Sometimes flat, but cool sounding anyway, and put to good use in songs like “Lamen of the Master Therion” and set-closer “Spirit Molecule,” which sadly didn’t have the piano part that made it such a standout on Voice of Saturn, but brought the evening to a rightful and noisy end nonetheless.

Anderson, donning a red Kyuss shirt, hunched troll-like over his low microphone to deliver his lines and, when they were done and Scanlan had long-since hobbled off the stage, leaving Fiore and Anderson up there as a duo to play his drums and drone out riffs, informed the crowd that, “Anyone who knew anything about anything illegal” and they “needed to talk.” I did not ask him if he wanted to rob a bank later on, but shook his hand outside and told him he played a good set. It was the best I could do.

The promised rainfall drenched my trip back to the valley, a downpour on Rt. 80 making it hard to see as I drove too fast anyway, the “Spirit Molecule” riff still stuck in my head. I don’t often make it out to Sunday shows, especially after Saturday ones, because I’m old and lame, but I was really glad I took the ride into the city to catch this one. Sometimes you get lucky in more ways than just getting a good parking spot.

Monster Magnet was supposed to play, which would have at least been convenient since I elected to stay home the rainy Saturday night in May when they hit Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, but for reasons unknown, it was not to be. Speculation, rumor and innuendo was all the explanation I was able to get out of anyone at the show. Massachusetts‘ Shadows Fall somehow became the fill-in for the middle slot, and their fit betwixt Clutch and opening trio Wino (featuring their namesake guitarist/vocalist and Clutch‘s J.P. Gaster on drums) was awkward to say the least, but they made a go of it and did their thing nonetheless. I was one of many late 20-somethings in the crowd who gave a perceptible “Oh yeah, this song,” when they played “Crushing Belial.” It had been a while since I heard that.

But Wino — who might even surpass his D.C.-area comrade Bobby Liebling of Pentagram as the Godfather of American Doom at this point — tacked a solo-riffic start onto the show long before Shadows Fall came on to test the goodwill of Clutch‘s audience. The band, who lost bassist Jon Blank to a drug overdose shortly after returning home from their remarkable closing-night performance at Roadburn in The Netherlands, sounded tight with replacement player Brian White (ex-Dog Fashion Disco, of all bands), though between Gaster and the man himself, a bassist would have to be Jaco Pastorius before he got noticed. Nonetheless, he did an able job thickening out the low end as the band delivered a t-shirt-purchase-worthy run through tracks off the Punctuated Equilibrium record. The joy of the three players in doing what they do seemed to emanate upwards to my balcony-level perch at the House of Blues, and I’m already looking forward to seeing them paired up with Clutch again when they hit NYC in October.

And to their credit, Shadows Fall did sound like they were on their stuff for a band who’ve apparently been locked in a studio for the last several months making a new album. The Atlantic Records alums — something they have in common with the evening’s headliners — now free of the major label influence, were suitably energetic and vocalist Brian Fair‘s dreadlocks are almost long enough now for him to trip over. I had to laugh watching him windmill headbang them around the stage as his bandmates casually each took a step away so as to not get hit. It was a long set, but they managed to keep it moving and to “Take it back to the old school” a couple times, shouting out “Destroyer of Senses” to everyone drinking, which was, well, everyone except those who had a drive back north waiting for them after the concert. D’oh.

When Clutch at last took the stage, the reception was one usually reserved for visiting dignitaries. The House of Blues wasn’t sold out owing to the holiday the next day, but the crowd packed in all the same and it got very warm very fast as Maryland‘s favored sons professional rocked cuts from mostly their last couple records, Robot Hive/Exodus, From Beale Street to Oblivion and the newest, Strange Cousins from the West, with an obligatory rending of “Big News I/II” from 1995′s self-titled late in the set that came much to the delight of the crowd and an encore that started with “Animal Farm” from the same record and ended with the ultra-bluesy revival, “Gravel Road.”

New songs “Motherless Child,” “Abraham Lincoln” and single “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” made their Jersey premiere and fit well with “Child of the City” (an unexpected highlight), “White’s Ferry,” “Electric Worry,” “Power Player” and “Burning Beard,” and as I looked around the venue an absurd number of couples were making out. I never really thought of “The Incomparable Mr. Flannery” as a spark for romance, but whatever. It was a long weekend. Might as well get it on.

By way of delivering on hopes I hadn’t wanted to get too far up (but did anyway), Wino came out and joined Clutch on guitar for “Red Horse Rainbows,” from 2001′s Pure Rock Fury. He’s on the studio version as well, but on stage it fell into a three-guitar jam with Tim Sult, vocalist Neil Fallon and Wino all going at once while bassist Dan Maines and Gaster managed to keep the rhythm together. As the end of the pre-encore set, it simply seemed like life couldn’t get any better. Yeah, then they broke out “Animal Farm.” Good times and another t-shirt bought. That seems to happen a lot when Clutch comes to town.

Funnel cake, unsweetened iced tea and unreasonable speeding had me back north before falling asleep at the wheel, pulling into the valley just before 3:00am. Outside the venue, a very, very drunk man had offered me $20 to stay and drink with him and a friend of his, but memory foam has a value above money and it was time to get the hell out of Atlantic City and go to bed. Even though I slept through most of the next day, and spent my few waking hours drinking and eating barbecue, I’ve yet to get “Gravel Road” and Wino‘s “Release Me” out of my head. It’s a duel in the mental jukebox, and I’ve got no complaints in letting the two battle it out.