Today Marks the One-Year Anniversary of the Baroness Bus Crash

I FINALLY got to see Baroness perform live last night for the first time since the release of Yellow & Green. Some little event got in the way of their scheduled summer and fall dates in 2012, and life pretty much got put on hold. It’s been a long climb back for John Baizley and Pete Adams — the duress caused Alen Blickle and Matt Maggioni to quit the band — but they’ve thrown a big middle finger in the air at destiny’s attempts to reign them in, and they’re bravely back on the road where they belong.

The bus crash took place exactly one year ago, a fact Baizley was well aware of last night; he said a few words towards the end of the set indicating he’d been thinking about the pending anniversary all day. His words were brief, but intense, emotional and heartfelt.

The band’s set leaned heavily on material from the new [not really new anymore] record; it was a delight to finally see these songs performed live. Baizley doesn’t have quite the physical presence he did pre-accident but he’s still an engaging frontman. His and Adams’ harmonized vocals were spot-on, just as they are on the record, a focal point of the set for this writer. New members Nick Jost (bass) and Sebastian Thomson (drums) filled the shoes of their predecessors quite well; Jost brings a punchy, bright flavor of his own to Maggioni’s bass parts, and Thomson is a heavy hitter with a decent groove, although he sometimes rushes through fills and comes down ahead of the one.

It is SO GOOD to have Baroness back and rocking again. We need them!

Here are some live clips of “March to the Sea” shot in Brooklyn a couple of weeks back interspersed with interview footage of Baizley and Adams speaking on the accident: