The Concert Reader Reviews:

Superjoint Ritual with Skinlab and Speedealer

There are currently 2 Reader Reviews of this tour.
Average Rating: 4
Go to Judgment Committee Reviews of this tour

Submitted by Solomon (6/12/02, WWE World, New York, NY):
Although not as crowded as the Motorhead show several weeks earlier, fans of Superjoint Ritual, just one of the many bands Pantera's Phil Anselmo has his hand in, turned out in full force Wednesday to drink, thrash about and shout a hardy "hail to the leaf." A little tiny leaf inside of a big-ass pentagram, to be exact. Yes, I doubt SJ's official logo will earn them an invitation to the White House for dinner anytime soon, but if it can happen to Ozzy... hmmmm. Just to make things sweeter, the boys in Superjoint brought along Speedealer and Century Media favorites Skinlab for the ride. OK, so we missed Speedealer. They impressed me as an opening act for Motorhead, and I imagine we will be catching them again sometime soon. Skinlab was a treat, as I had not seen them since an Earth Crisis/In Flames gig in Salt Lake a couple years ago.
Skinlab are one of Century Media's hot items, generating very decent sales figures (for independent metal, anyway) and raising hopes for greatness with their newest release, reVoltingRoom. Now, I have not heard the new album, and some may accuse the band of taking the nu-metal plunge, but they are just beating the shit out of their instruments, right? Nu-metal, rap metal, metalcore, fuck, I don't care what you want to call it. It all sounded like Skinlab to me. With a mix of old and new material, Skinlab held their ground and owned the stage for time they were allotted. The music was heavy and dark, and newer songs were balanced out with primo older fare like "Know Your Enemies" and "Second Skin." The only thing the really sucked was the low volume and poor sound clarity. Unfortunate for Skinlab, as much of that material lost its full potency due to crummy mixing and/or the fact the WWF hall just isn't build for this. As for the sound, we'll see next time, but Skinlab was cool and they deserve bigger tours like this.
I went into this thing cold turkey, not having heard a single track off Joint's Use Once and Destroy. However, since Anselmo was involved, and we had references to Satan, weed, and the Stars and Bars going, you could figure this was not going to be a night at the opera. If you made bets on a sped-up version of Down, you would be correct. The gang proceeded to assault us with short, down-home swamp rock tunes that had been smoked to perfection in the fires of thrash and death metal. Not as potent as Pantera, but makes Down look kinda lazy. Phil was, well, Phil, screaming in quasi-black metal glory, cussin' and carrying-on, although we were thankfully spared any long-winded sermons.

Submitted by REDMAN667 (6/6/02, The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA):
Start of the tour. Let's hope brother Phil survives this and so much more.
First up were Speedealer. They used to be REO Speedealer until 'that 70s act' REO Speedwagon (whatever the hell one of those is supposed to be, I'll never know) filed a "cease and desist" order in court. So Lubbock's (that's a city in Texas, boys and girls) finest dropped the three letter segment and what a difference it made. Prior to the show, I read a review comparing them to Metallica by way of Lynyrd Skynyrd with Phil Anselmo-ish vocals. I don't know that a more distant reference could have been made. Wow. If CDNow is where PoserCDNow gets his information, he might reconsider his source. Wow (again). These guys sound very little like this amalgam of a depiction. Think (faster, old) Clutch with a dash of garage-rock and lots of yelling for vocals. I wasn't feeling it. Maybe I was psyched out by that off-center review. If you were a fan, maybe you'd get into them. I did not. After 30 minutes, they were through.
Next up were Oakland, California's Skinlab. No stranger to this band, I was anticipating a killer show. After reviewing their newest album (which is less than a month old -- go to www.skinlab1.com for more information) elsewhere, I figured the set would be pretty good. Unfortunately, it was only that -- pretty good. Steev is a dynamic frontman, there is no question about that. His fondness for his relatively new "singing" voice is interesting to say the least. It works well in some places, not so well in others, but unfortunately it was largely lost in the mix as the soundguy had not done his job well. C'est la vie. Whatever the case, this band performed with a lot of energy. The new Kiwi axeman (Glenny) also performs backing vocals which was pretty cool. Snake was his usual grinding self who sang (off-mic) along with the crowd. Paul drums like a madman possessed -- truly a talent. As I said above, the energy was tremendous and the crowd was definitely into them. Primary request/wish/suggestion: Minimize the newer, radio-friendly material. Steev commented how one of their songs ("Anthem for a Fallen Star") had been picked up for radio play, which he claims they did not expect. Okay, sure. The more accessible sound of the new record pretty much screamed the opposite, but I digress. When the old songs kicked in, the floor felt like it would collapse at any moment. 'Nuff said. The set was surprisingly brief at 35 minutes.
Finally, he who everyone had gathered to see took the stage after repeated chants of "SU-PER-JOINT!" In fact, many of tonight's faithful were adorned in their DOWN concert shirts from the 04/28 show here in Atlanta (if not elsewhere), and they were definitely there to see Phil Anselmo, much like myself. "That's right. As some of you may have noticed, I'm in a lot of goddamn bands. Right now, though, it's Superjoint, DOWN, and Pantera and that's it." Phil was announcing his intentions to the crowd for the night and perhaps the future with that statement. I, for one, was glad to hear it. Phil's antics were certainly familiar to myself, particularly after seeing DOWN twice in a month's time, but tonight he seemed to be a little further away. His speech was slurred worse than I have ever heard it and did not improve through the night's between-song-banter. Perhaps he'll slow down with his "hobbies" before he dies. I most certainly hope so. That would be a loss.
If you have the Superjoint Ritual Use Once and Destroy disc, or have read my review elsewhere, you know what to expect. The live setting was necessarily faithful to the recording which was quite likely a series of live takes anyway. The band played through the setlist with unmatched fury and were excellent in spite of Phil's comment: "We're not here to impress anybody. I hope you don't mind if we just... (*pause like an eternity*) JAM, you-know-what-I'm-saying?" The crowd was obviously into it, even though most of them, I would venture, had never heard the music. This is quite likely particularly true considering the album at that time had only been released less than two weeks prior to the tour (one week in the case of Skinlab). Needless to say, the show was definitely energized, even if our Metal hero was a bit out of it -- "What song are we playin'? Somebody start this motherfucker...."
Phil introduced everyone and talked of his great friendship with Joe Fazzio (drummer) and Kevin Bond (axeman who "played my guitar parts" since Phil recorded them for the album) over the past 12 or so years. When he introduced Jimmy Bower and talked of all his bands, Jimmy played a lick from each of them, including a little bit of DOWN, which was cool. Upon introducing "the Third" on bass, the crowd went wild. If you were in the dark, the bassist is Hank Williams, III -- yeah, from that family of rebels. He's an unabashed punk fan and wore an ancient Black Flag shirt and a Misfits sweatband (like Doyle wears) to prove it. He thrashed wilder than the rest of the band and appeared to relish the background role. Superjoint Ritual invoked the crowd to smoke (big surprise, right?) and much green passed hands and ended up in Phil's. As usual, he was thankful for the herb and pocketed it. At some point in the >1 hour set, Phil commented that it had been some 11 years since he last played the venue (the Masquerade) but that he loved the intimate and casual setting. He further commented how certain "stars complain about this or that, how this isn't big enough, or that ain't good enough, but this is badass. I love it."
Prior to the show as I waited outside, I saw Jimmy Bower getting off the bus. I shot him the 'sign' (\m/) and he smiled in recognition, giving me a 'thumb's up' sign in return. If I could've talked to the man, I would have done so. But that was not to be, which is alright. Bottom line: the show was badass with the crowd loving Phil as much as he loved them. It was very personal in there that night and I recommend you go see the man and his band. !Viva el Phil!

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