Before Tuesday afternoon, it had literally been years since I'd listened to Alice in Chains - but with their Bowery Ballroom show awaiting me that evening, I dusted off Jar of Flies and Dirt and got to work. Except for some production flourishes, both have aged well IMO. I only fit in one spin each before the show but, as I realized when I saw NIN last May, when you play an album to death in high school, you never forget the songs. I suspect one's reaction to the show, then, would essentially come down to this - if you liked the band 10-12 years ago, you'd have loved the show. And if you didn't like them back then, then you were nowhere near the Bowery that night. It was a crowd straight out of 1994 - maybe the lowest hipster count I've ever seen there, with lots of old-school fans in AIC gear and, shockingly, no David Bowie in the balcony.

Layne Staley was such an essential part of AIC's sound that I wasn't sure if or how singer William DuVall would cut it on this tour. It turns out he handles things surprisingly well - I thought he did justice to every song. And with the rest of the band still the same, the songs still hit like a truck. (Earplugs were very necessary.) They started with "Sludge Factory" and "Dam That River," and ended up playing much of Dirt. The best songs were the ones you'd expect, with "Rooster," "Rain When I Die," and "Would?" rising to the top for me. More of the self-titled album would've been nice, and the lack of Jar of Flies was disappointing, especially after Mike Inez teased with "Rotten Apple" twice (uncalled for!). It was interesting to see how much Inez carried some of the songs, actually - more going on with the basslines than I expected. More than anything else, though, the band (and especially Jerry Cantrell) just seemed happy to be playing. And given how little they toured when Staley was still alive, I think most of the crowd shared the feeling.

Rye Coalition opened up, and I was looking forward to their set as well. They're a band I've been curious to see for literally 7 or 8 years now (since The Lipstick Game) but until Tuesday, it never happened. They were good, though a little less punk than I expected. Still, it was an all-around solid evening.

(Oh and the massive security dude on stage during AIC was nuts! The crowdsurfing started about halfway through the show, and at the end of "Would?" he literally picked a guy up off the crowd, pulled him close, shouted in his ear, and threw him back into the crowd. Out of control!)