High On Fire and Meshuggah played House of Blues – 11/2

A few weeks back, Swedish avant-prog mainstays Meshuggah brought their tour with Matt Pike’s stoner-thrash power trio High On Fire to Boston’s House of Blues. 

On paper, these two are admittedly a weird match-up. Meshuggah’s heady polyrhythmic death metal is pretty far removed from High On Fire’s more traditionally heavy metal-indebted style. The pairing worked in practice though, mostly thanks to a two-band bill that gave Pike and company a full hour in which to shred. The show felt closer to a co-headlining effort that way, and audience met in the middle with enthusiastic showings for both acts.

Nice to see a bit of unity in the world, right?

On a note beyond the confines of the concert hall, these photos have been done for a week and I’ve been too caught up in the shitstorm of American politics to feel like writing anything or posting them. This work, important as it is to me, can’t help but feel inconsequential in the wake of this country electing a dangerously unqualified bigot to its highest office. I don’t have anything to say about it that hasn’t been already been said more eloquently elsewhere, but it’s sad and it’s immensely scary.

Music’s been helping me deal this past week, both the sad and mournful stuff and the fist-through-wall approximations. Hope it’s doing the same for you. You’ll continue seeing me at the gig, looking wearier than usual. Here’s some photos: