Published by Alessandro Violante on August 5, 2025
What we experienced at Circolo Magnolia on 31st July 2025 in Milan remembered us what rock music essentially is and how rock music live shows should essentially be experienced: few cellphones and a passionated crowd which attended the event although it happened on an ordinary Thursday evening.
As the title suggests, we’ve listened to the second Italian live show of the UK/EU Summer 2025 “Stop Your Whining” tour by Melvins and Redd Kross. The day before, they played in Rome at Eur Social Park.
I’ve appreciated so much how their fans have stayed focused on the two performances for the whole event, often refusing to drink another beer to avoid losing their position in the crowd, which is not so common. This means that people being there that evening were there only to enjoy the performances and the music played, and I definitely liked it. I did the same, never looking behind me. When, during the beginning of the Melvins performance, I looked behind me, I’ve understood how huge the crowd had become.
When Melvins started playing their classic “Honey Bucket” included in their classic album “Houdini” and people started going crazy, the heat increased and air started to stifle, but I didn’t leave my position quite close to the band, and I think the whole crowd did the same, and this feeling and this way of living the moment has truly been better than any tracklist could be, but let’s focus on the performances. That’s what people want to read about.
Listening to people talking about them, I didn’t think everyone there knew the Redd Kross and their alternative rock, but I’m definitely sure everyone enjoyed very much their music and their energy. The band started releasing music a long time ago in the early eighties, approximately in the same years as Melvins did, and have played together with them since 2015, when Redd Kross’ co-founder bassist Steven McDonald joined Melvins.
Redd Kross playing
What I’ve discovered about them is that the two bands often play together, and that some of their members play in both bands. Dale Crover, formerly Melvins’ drummer, plays for both the bands, in the same way Steven McDonald does. The lineup is of course completed by the co-founder singer and guitarist Jeff McDonald and by the guitarist Jason Shapiro, who joined the band in 2019. What people enjoyed the most about the performance was, as already said, the energy they put into the performance, their irony and the perceived feeling that they were having a lot of fun while playing.
The audience’ feedback has been rewarding for them, and also thanks to this, they played an unforgettable show. Of course, they played some of their classics, along with their new material included in the self titled album released one year ago.
As previously said, when their live ended, the crowd, in the meanwhile hugely increased, stayed in front of the stage to avoid losing its position, manifesting its strong interest in listening to Melvins from the best possible position. After having listened to some relaxing music, King Buzzo entered the stage, and so the bassist Steven McDonald and the two drummers Dale Crover and Coady Willis did. This last drummer started playing with them in 2006 in the so called “Big Business” era.
People stayed in religious silence for the whole live performance and, as said above, as they started increasing speed, people started going crazy, and someone did crowdsurfing. During the show, Melvins showed their two souls: King Buzzo representing the most introvert side of the band, only focusing on his guitar and on the music, while Steven McDonald calling the audience to participate to the performance. The feeling perceived into the crowd was unforgettable, and apparently no one felt the need to publish social network stories.
Melvins playing
The choice of playing with two drummers gave to their sound an even stronger heaviness and power. The crowd had everything they expected from them, and they were completely satisfied. They played the same tracklist played in Rome the day before, which is traditionally very similar (if not exactly the same) to that played in each show of their tours, without encores (that’s typical of Melvins). The setlist included classics such as the aforementioned “Honey Bucket” as well as “Hag me” and “Night Goat” from “Houdini”, “Hog Leg” from the “Eggnog EP”, “Blood Witch” and “A History of Bad Men” from “A Senile Animal”, “It’s Shoved” and “Your Blessened” from “Bullhead”, and all the classics they always play at their shows as well as their most recent music, including the opener “Working the Ditch” from “Tarantula Heart”, released one year ago.
Without focusing too much on the tracklists, as they’re available from setlist.fm, what the reader should understand from this report is how, listening to such artists live, can bring us back to a pre-social networks world, when people went to live gigs only to enjoy the experience of being there and to listen to their favourite bands (and to a lot of guitar solos) without expensive merch tables (there weren’t at all at Circolo Magnolia) and without anything “trendy” or “cool”. That’s what Melvins and Redd Kross are about. That’s what this music is about. And we definitely like it.