There’s something about a true grunge crowd, they are a little bit ‘millennial,’ but also a little blue collar. Local H play less stadiums, twenty-something years in, but at this point, Local H do not really have any problem selling out a small venue, but all the same they must be exhausted from playing them.
They seemed full of life at Subterranean in Chicago on New Year’s Eve, and Scott Lucas’s Matchless amplifier replaced the Soldano he used on the Metallica stadium tour and the tried and true Laney. After getting to the newer Subterranean a little bit late, the first songs in were easy to get into, as “Nothing Special” has always been just the right amount of outrage, and “All the Kids Are Right” brings you back down to earth.
That said, even though Local H did their own unique New Year’s, ‘end of the world’ thing this year, with the 30th being Heaven-themed, and the 31st being Hell-themed, with a special guest guitarist, John Haggerty, there was something morose about some of the songs. With “All Right, Oh Yeah!”, “Cynic”, “Fritz’s Corner”, and “Another February” some of those charging up to midnight. “City of Knives” kicked off New Year’s, “California Songs” was in there, and “That’s What They All Say” may have been the highlight of the main set, because it just rocks.
The encore was where it was at though, as they went through another half set of lengthy songs from starting with “Highway to Hell”, which was fine, but making the mark when of course the obligatory songs were played like, “Bound For The Floor” but it became “twenty-five to six or four”, which is always great, and ending with three straight, “What Would You Have Me Do?”, “Manifest Destiny Pt. 2”, first. It’s hard to say how many people were swaying to “Grrrlfriend”, but they should have been, and “I love all of you, and I think it’s a riot” ending “Grrrlfriend” we’re the last official words from Local H on the 1st of January, 2018.
