Music Monday: Bob Mould Live in Portland, OR

Bob Mould in action

Last Wednesday night, I traveled to Portland, OR to see Bob Mould at one of the few dates on his Copper Blue/Silver Age tour. It was fucking amazing… hands down a great experience. As you can tell from the above photo, I was only 20 feet from the stage to enjoy this almost 90 min set by a punk and rock legend.

The Stage is Set

The club – Wonder Ballroom – is an older dance hall converted into a open club [albeit to those 21 and over] and was a great venue for a show like this.

The Thermals were the opening band

The opening band was The Thermals, who are local to Portland and put on a great 40 minute set. But once they finished, the wait for the former Hüsker Dü frontman to take the stage began.

The name is Bob… Bob Mould

Starting off with “The Act We Act”, Bob Mould and his band kicked off the track by track live recreation of “Copper Blue”, which turned 20 years old this month. All 10 tracks were flawless, including the hit “Helpless”, which I captured almost all of the song below.

Helpless

“Helpless” (I missed the start of the song)

Guitar Stance

The stance of a guitar-wielding Bob Mould

The vocals and guitar were strong… very strong, with bassist Jason Narducy helping with harmony that accompanied Mr. Mould, who not only was breaking a sweat, but rarely toweled off his mostly-bald head. Jon Wurster stayed on his drum kit and in the background, providing a great beat to the musical magic of the night.

Set List

After “Man On The Moon” finished, Bob and band wasted no time playing a few songs from his new album “Silver Age”, which sounds great live. Mixed into the rest of the set list were a smattering of Hüsker Dü hits that the crowd knew quite well, singing along to each lyric and musical note.

I previously blogged about my excitement in not only seeing Bob Mould live for the first time, but also the new album “Silver Age” as well as being able to relive the great “Copper Blue” from the Sugar part of Bob’s album catalog. This album has held up great over the two decades.

Totally worth the 12 hours of driving from Salt Lake to Portland, this is one show I’m not going to forget. There’s only two more dates on this tour: 10/30 in Los Angeles and 11/02 in Austin, TX. If you are close to these cities [or want to take a road trip like I did], it’s totally worth it to see this show.