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Sup Pop is well-known for unabashed self-promotion and grandiose overstatement. Thing is, most of that (tongue-in-cheek) hyperbole is deserved. The much-touted reunion of Green River, one of the label's first signees, was no different. It truly was the highlight of Sub Pop's two-day 20th birthday bash.
From the moment Green River—drummer Alex Shumway, guitarists Steve Turner, Stone Gossard, and Bruce Fairweather, bassist Jeff Ament, and frontman Mark Arm—took the stage, the crowd (packed tight and close, but courteously so) was in a frenzy. Friends, family, and colleagues like Dan Peters, Guy Maddison, Matt Cameron, Chad Channing, and Jack Endino, bounced their heads in the stage's packed wings. Mark Pickerel and Pavitt wandered through the crowd.
Arm was wild, himself. It's impossible not to see a lot of Iggy Pop in the Green River and Mudhoney singer (and sometime guitarist). On this special occasion, Arm channeled Pop while putting his own wild, wry spin on the persona. Digging into the set's first song, "Come on Down," Arm pinwheeled on acrobatic legs, threw his arms wide, bugged his eyes out, sneered, and swaggered around the stage. He never slowed down.
The four guitarists didn't rest, either. Turner and Gossard faced off on their singer's left side, while Ament and Fairweather repeatedly convened for backup vocals on his left. Though tearing through songs they hadn't played for an audience in two decades—they'd only recently begun to rehearse—they sounded more tight and fiery than on the cuts they recorded so long ago. And they seemed to realize that, grinning like mischievous teens through two other songs from their debut EP ("Swallow My Pride," "New God"), "P.C.C.," "Ozzie," and "This Town" from the Dry as a Bone EP, and Rehab Doll's "Together We'll Never."
Green River also unsheathed several songs previously heard only on old-ass demo tapes and pirated mp3s: "33 RPM," "Baby Help Me...," "Leech," and "Ain't Nothing to Do." Arm prefaced "Leech" with an anecdote about the Melvins ripping off the song after hearing the demo in 1984. (The Melvins' version was titled "Leeech.") Joking that Green River was the "Willie Dixon of grunge," he added, "With the legal power Pearl Jam and Sub Pop, we're going to crush those bastards!" He then introduced the band's members as if it actually were 1984: "Jeff and Bruce from Deranged Diction; Stone and Steve from proto-grunge band The Ducky Boys; Alex from Spluii Numa; and I'm the evil wizard of Mr. Epp."
They closed the set with "Ain't Nothing to Do," and as the song clamored to a finish, Shumway deserted the drums and ran for the stage's edge. He launched himself into a group of dudes who'd been surfing the crowd for half an hour. He quickly made it back onstage—unscathed and still smiling—and retook his place at the kit to wrap up. Minutes later, with the last chunky notes echoing into memory, the entire band lined up at lip of the stage and hurled white t-shirts into the crowd.
The shirts, a reissue of their mid-80s original, bore the band's name on the front and a catchy slogan on the back, below a graphic of the Green River soft drink: "RIDE THE FUCKING SIXPACK." Fans screamed and dove for the souvenirs, falling all over each other as the band looked on.
And then Green River was gone, leaving elation and a tinge of disappointment in their wake. Those who were there will cling to that wild memory. And the fading wish that the band could have played longer than 40 minutes.
As this show proved, though, history repeats. So, if Sub Pop's still doing everything exceptionally well in another ten years and remains tickled enough to prove it to the world, maybe we'll see Green River ride a stage once more.
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