watch never-seen footage of The Locust and Orthrelm in 2002

May 20, 2020

Locust

We recently posted a never-before-seen live video of The Locust in San Diego in 2005, and now we’ve got one of them at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill in 2002. The show was with avant-metal duo Orthrelm (aka Mick Barr and Josh Blair), and we’ve got never-before-seen footage of their full set too.

The show was shot by Matt Driscoll of The Pizza Series for the Three One G DVD This Is Circumstantial Evidence, but this is the first time the full sets are seeing the light of day. Matt says:

I’ve always loved shows at Bottom Of The Hill. I was filming The Locust and Orthrelm at this show for the Three One G DVD that I was working on. I’ve filmed The Locust maybe a dozen times, but really love the up close shots I was able to get in this footage. Since I was filming for the DVD, I was able to be on stage and move around a bit, probably super annoying for the crowd seeing me move around on stage, but The Locust are always amazing live, so I think the crowd were too into them to even notice I was up there.

Orthrelm live is almost like an unsolvable math equation that you keep racking your brain around to figure out, and when you think you’re close to figuring it out, you get hit with more shredding! I remember JP wanting them to dress up like wizards on stage, because they were exactly that, shred wizards! Not sure if that idea ever came into fruition, but that would’ve been an incredible site to see live. Their footage of this show turned out great on the 31G DVD!

We also spoke to Bobby Bray of The Locust, who adds:

COVID-19 has been revealing many things: socioeconomic differences; how vulnerable we are as a species despite technological advances; missed opportunities for world peace; as well as how important art/music can be in terms of serving as an exhaust valve for emotional/psychological pressure.

Certainly listening to studio recordings plays a major role in that picture, but there can be something viscerally cathartic about live shows. As someone who has played over 800 shows and ran sound as an audio engineer at an additional 800 shows, I actually underestimated that fact. Like many I didn’t predict the sudden halting of all live shows nor the sociological effects that would have, which are still unfolding.
Looking back at these shows filmed by Matt Driscoll as part of the illustrious ‘Pizza Series’ filmed in 2002, it is fascinating to mirror-neuron back in time. I don’t even mind the blown-out audio from the camera mic as Driscoll changes on-stage positions for the first 7 minutes, finally setting behind Gabe on drums.

I remember announcing the song “23 Lubed-Up Schizophrenics with Delusions of Grandeur” (eight minutes in) and thinking there were about 23 people at the show who were really allowing themselves to go for it — the song had new meaning in that moment. I wonder what those folks are up to now — 18 years later during a pandemic with Trump as president and legalized weed (in California) is deemed an essential business. If anyone saw this timeline unfolding it was probably one of them!

Also, Orthrelm rules! If you are a guitar player and haven’t seen/heard Mick Barr shred, you need to get on that.

Watch both videos below.

In related news, San Diego’s The Gay Agenda just released a new song featuring The Locust’s Justin Pearson.