Where I Want To Go-Hawthorne Theater/Angelo’s

I am at the Hawthorne Theater to see the mighty High On Fire play. It’s a small luxury in what has been a fairly expensive year, so I’m quite happy I can attend. I won’t be having a drink here, though. It’s not because the Hawthorne Theater doesn’t have anything good: even the dive bars in Portland have incorporated the ‘we should have awesome beer’ message and something is at least available in the bottle.

No, it’s the bathroom. A zero privacy space that doesn’t lock easy that I refuse to use unless nobody else is in the building or I’ve gotten enough alcohol in me that I don’t care.  It’s a Monday night so I refuse to get to that point. It’s better to just enjoy the show and see if I can find something to slake my thirst later.

It’s a pretty good show, too the opening band Black Snake is about as generic as their name but aren’t bad and Windham is a jam band. I don’t care how heavy they are, a jam band is still a jam band.

Kveltertak is a bit like seeing five Andrew WKs and a drum beast filtered through Norway. Either that’s awesome or it isn’t and I thought it was awesome. Those lads are going to have to learn how to pace themselves soon though; you can’t headline on an hour of their breakneck rock. You’d just die.

As for High On Fire: If there is a more essentially metal band performing out there, I don’t know of them.

I left the Hawthorne happy, overheated and very thirsty. I was a little worried that I’d have trouble getting a beer at such a late hour on a Monday but I shouldn’t have been concerned at all. Portland seems to really like three things: strippers, reading, and drinking. Angelo’s was very quiet but it was open and the bartender was kind enough to sell me a Lagunita’s IPA.

Which tasted like awesome, because I needed one.