HELMET. MEANTIME. LIVE. SOON.

Much like 2006’s Monochrome, last year’s Helmet album Seeing Eye Dog didn’t do much for this longtime fan. In fact, it sent me back to the band’s older glorious records like Strap It On and Betty, reminiscing on the days when the pioneering quartet reigned in that golden age of American noise rock. So it gave me great pleasure to learn that they too intend to look back on those days, by playing all of 1992’s seminal Meantime LP live on tour.

A full list of dates have yet to be released, but according to BrooklynVegan’s Black Bubblegum the tour will run from March 17th through April 5th. What’s even cooler is that the openers are Saint Vitus and Crowbar. That’s right, folks: this is a PROPER nostalgia tour for headbangers of a certain age.

In the back of my mind, of course, are these niggling little doubts. After all, save for frontman Page Hamilton, none of the other members from the Meantime era are currently in Helmet. So essentially, we’re getting Page & Pals Present instead of the proper reunion that fans have been clamoring for. I’m also concerned that they’ll stick this one in a few venues that are a bit too large. Still, this is a pretty damn heavy album, and if done right it will be a maelstrom of sound and sweat and fists in a live setting. Oh well, consider me psyched.

-GS