Melvins – Strummer’s – Fresno, CA – April 22, 2026
Highly influential Washington legends the Melvins played a tune up/gas money show at Strummer’s in Fresno on Wednesday night on their way to the Sick New World Festival in Las Vegas on Saturday. Strummer’s is named after Clash frontman Joe Strummer, and is an all-ages single room 400 capacity venue in the Tower Arts District of Fresno. Inside, the vibe depends largely on the band, but for the shows I’ve seen, it leans heavily towards chaotic mayhem. Outside, the mayhem is different because the venue is in a part of town with homelessness issues, where drugged out denizens yell at invisible people and patrol the streets like a scene ripped from the script of Night of the Living Dead. Despite its seedy location, Strummer’s hosts a constant stream of great eclectic bands, and is worthy of the journey if someone you love is playing there – like the Melvins.
Melvins
The Melvins are an institution, forming in 1983 and inspiring countless bands including Tool, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. Kurt Cobain was a massive fan, and vocalist Buzz Osborne helped facilitate Dave Grohl joining Nirvana in 1990. Pioneers of sludge metal and the sound that later became the hallmark of grunge, Melvins were always a band musicians loved, and it’s perplexing that they didn’t become as massive on a global scale as their Seattle peers. Perhaps it was that they prioritized artistic freedom over commercial success – there simply isn’t a formula to their 20+ records – they played whatever they wanted without catering to whatever trend was fashionable at the time. The Melvins are the real deal, not because of the countless bands they influenced, but because of the mountain of music they’ve made to date and their standout live performances – it takes just one show to be hooked, and there’s a reason they’re still incredibly relevant 43 years after forming.
I mentioned that this was a tune up show for Sick New World, but that implies a half-assed and not ready for prime-time effort – that is not at all what the Melvins delivered in Fresno on Wednesday night. What fans at the sold-out Strummers witnessed was something beyond belief. There are a lot of great live bands, but this was next level. I’ve seen them several times, and each time they’ve been incredible, with powerhouse songs and a live show so good you want to hop in your car after the show and see them play the following night a few hundred miles down the road.
From the floor, the first thing I noticed was the two dualling upstage drum sets, placed side by side. I’d only seen the Melvins perform with one drummer, although I knew they frequently used two. When Coady Willis and Dale Crover came out and started into a quasi-synchronized intro, I knew it was going to be great. Steve Shane McDonald has been a constant fixture on bass and backing vocals with the Melvins since 2015, after founding Redd Cross as a middle-schooler, and added a must-watch factor to the stage show. Jumps, posing, writhing on the floor, and sticking his tongue out at fans while standing precariously on the edge of the stage lording over the crowd are all part of the fun. And we haven’t even talked about Buzz Osborne (King Buzzo)… A white shock of hair coupled with a flowing mumu/sorcerer’s cloak, and clear EGC guitar in hand, Buzz appeared suddenly on stage-right, while the audience was under the spell of the twin drum intro. It’s hard to describe his performing style, except that he’s all-in, and isn’t saving anything for the next show. As soon as he’s delivered a vocal, he patrols the stage, frequently accenting notes with a violent shake of his head, sending his hair on an impossible mission to play catchup. A complete tour-de-force and freak of nature, Buzz reigns over it all while seeming to be guided by an unseen force, pulling him this way and that.
At most concerts, photographers shoot from the photo pit up against the stage. At venues like Strummers, there is no photo pit, and in order to get up close to shoot, you need to arrive before the fans. In my case, I arrived at 5:00pm for 7:00pm doors, and it was good that I did. A line quickly formed, and stretched around the block by the time we were let in. To properly photograph concerts, your head needs to be on a swivel, looking, anticipating – trying to document what it was like to be there and capture the overall feel. In those moments when the camera wasn’t pressed to my eye, I found myself staring awestruck at what I was witnessing a few feet and at times mere inches away with a huge smile on my face. All four members were fantastic, both sonically, and performance-wise, and there was always something to look at – just when it seemed that it couldn’t get better, somehow, inexplicably, it did.
The mosh pit opened up right behind me the instant the first notes came through the PA, and I got throttled…all night. The stage was waist-high, with a wedge speaker directly in front of me. Fan participation is to be expected with the Melvins – the energy being put forth from the stage is returned from those in attendance, and that was certainly the case on this night. Every time I got hit from behind, the speaker would move as I got shoved into it – I’d haul it back to its proper spot, where it stayed until I got struck again ten seconds later.
Near the end of the show, I started worrying about my cameras getting destroyed, and figured I’d work my way to the outskirts of the chaos between songs and take some long-lens photos. That strategy had always worked before at Strummers, but not on this night. There were too many people, pressed too tightly together. An opening big enough to stand in didn’t appear in the crowd until I was near the entrance, which was at the back of the large open room. I’d worked hard to get there with my cameras raised in the air to both alert people that I was coming through and also so they wouldn’t get damaged. While fighting against the flow of humanity like a salmon swimming upstream is never my idea of fun, it made me think how cool it was that in a small agricultural town in the middle of nowhere, this many people had crammed into a hot dark room to witness an event. They had all come to see the Melvins – a powerful band four+ decades in the making, doing their thing the way only they can.
Setlist:
1) Working the Ditch
2) The Bloated Pope
3) Never Say You’re Sorry
4) Sway
5) Evil New War God
6) It’s Shoved
7) Queen
8) A History of Bad Men
9) The Bit
10) Blood Witch
11) Hag Me
12) Honey Bucket
13) Revolve
14) Night Goat
Melvins are:
- Buzz Osborne – Guitar/Vocals
- Dale Crover – Drums
- Coady Willis – Drums
- Steven Shane McDonald – Bass
Brooks Robinson is an LA-based concert photographer, and 30+ year freelance camera operator for film, television, and music videos. He has photographed some of the largest film/TV projects in history, and hundreds of music videos in MTV's heyday.
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