Wellwater Conspiracy at the Showbox, Seattle- 7-9-01

by Drew Hilling


Wow, what a show. You know, I always seem to get Glenn Slater confused with Mudhoney members, but he looked strangely like Guy Maddison, their new bass player. Anyway, he didn't play bass per se--he was more of a keyboard bassist in that he played most of the bass parts on a second keyboard.

Even sans Endino, this band is a force to be reckoned with. If drum kits were living animals, there would be wanted posters of Matt Cameron all over the walls of your local PETA office. He's simply astounding whenever he gets behind a kit and he drove WWC with such ferocity that I swear it wasn't the whiskey that knocked me over. With McBain noodling away in a particularly devilish way, they established yet another identity in an amazing array of disguises. The commonality between every version of WWC or BOE has been that they always seem to put on a phenomenal show. Oh, and they always seem to feature a prowling, sneering, sinister and borderline-uncontrolled Ben Shepherd at the end. Probably not a coincidence. Tonight's model also featured some dude named Ed Vedder who sang quite beautifully. With the stellar jams of Green Undertow and Enebrio and a menacing new song called Sullen Glaciers, Wellwater again managed to stand up and be counted as one of the best bands working today.


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