I missed the start of Summonus’ set, which is pretty slack considering it was their frontman (and UB photographer) Rod Hunt who put me on the guest list. But at least I had a good excuse. I was stoned and my car had overheated.

Having not smoked weed in a while I was feeling like a giggling high-schooler after his first joint when I jumped in the car to head to The Roundhouse. Driving was not a problem (for some reason I seem to be able to drive OK no matter what state I’m in), but there were so many strange and brilliant thoughts running through my head I couldn’t decide whether I was crazy or a complete genius. Just as I was about to start having a panic attack, I noticed the temperature gauge had shot up to a “you better pull over right now before you blow a head gasket” level, which sent me into a panic attack anyway.

I stopped at a Mobil service station nearby to buy some radiator coolant, but first I had to use the ATM. While I was getting cash out a not-particularly-attractive woman came into the servo and lined up behind me to use the machine. Once I’d finished, she stepped up to the ATM, which was situated at the back of the shop next to the car care products. As she punched in her numbers my eyes scanned over the shelves. There seemed to be every grade of engine oil as well as power steering fluid, anti-freeze/anti-boil, even 2-stroke, but no coolant. Because I was stoned I didn’t trust myself so I scanned over the shelves again, bending down to read every bottle just to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Suddenly I noticed the woman looking at me suspiciously out of the corner of her right eye and a huge wave of paranoia swept over me. Does she think I’m trying to get a sniff of her undies? Shit, I just need some coolant so I can get to the gig!

I ran out of there and drove to the BP down the street. They did have coolant, which my thirsty Falcon sucked up as soon as I started to pour it in. The whole five-litre bottle evaporated within seconds, so I walked over to the Air/Water station to re-fill it with tap water to top up the radiator. A car was parked next to it with a woman sitting in the driver’s seat dressed in Islam headscarf and her male passenger was just beginning to fill the tyres with air. I stuck my bottle under the tap and started to re-fill it when this guy, who’d only put air in one of the car’s four tyres, stood there staring at me. Maybe he was as whacked and paranoid as I was?

I asked him, “Are you OK mate?” Without saying a word he dropped the air hose and got back in the car. The female driver said something to him in another language, which presumably went something like, “What the fuck are you doing, you’ve only done one tyre, you gimp?” He said something back to her and they drove off. It was even weirder than the panty-sniffing incident a few minutes earlier.

Despite my scattered state of mind, I made a point of keeping the receipt for the “Castrol Radi-cool” so I had a valid excuse for missing Rod’s band. The receipt proved I was in Bexley with an overheating car at 19:12 hours, which meant there was no way I could have gotten to The Roundhouse at Kingsford by the scheduled kick-off time of 7:30pm.

When I finally arrived, Summonus were deep into a stoner-doom groove. Rod was up there working the big stage like a man who’s obviously seen his fair share of metal frontmen (which he has). He had all the moves – the big boot stride, the invisible orange squeeze, and oh, the things he can do with a mic chord. His hair also looked awesome being blown back by the onstage fans. The rest of the band were less animated, with drummer Nathan pounding a steady beat while guitarist Trav and bassist Keith stayed rooted to the spot riffing away.

They finished one song and started another called “Embodiment”. As Rod growled menacingly over the band’s down-tuned sludge, I started vague-ing out and thinking strange thoughts again. All of a sudden I had a moment of clarity. I finally came to understand the full implications of the term “stoner rock”! I’d never even thought about it before but in that one brief moment it all seemed to make sense.

I arrived back in the real world just as Summonus launched into a Bongzilla cover. The assembled crowd had begun to warm up a bit and quite a few mangy longhairs had been converted. As the band finished-up with the long and doomy “The Gallows”, their newly won-over fans played assorted air instruments and banged their heads slowly and methodically. Some even pulled out cameras and took pictures of Rod, which struck me as hilarious considering he’s the one normally taking photos of everyone else.

Between bands I spent time in the bar area out the back catching up with mates and trying to calm down. When Mastodon walked onstage there was a mad rush as everyone attempted to leave the bar immediately and get out into the venue itself. This created a huge bottleneck, which took at least half a song to clear. As we shuffled toward the exit fans were shouting out “woos” and “fuck yeahs”! This crowd was pumped.

I took up a spot somewhere near the dead centre of The Roundhouse. By this time Mastodon were well into “Oblivion”, the opener to their latest album Crack The Skye. Their singing sounded horrendous, but their fans didn’t help matters. Lame Ozzy rip-off vocals suck enough without hearing a bunch of dickheads trying to sing along in my earhole in that same whiny voice.

To be fair, the early mix didn’t do the band any favours. As the set went on the mixer was able to better hide the obvious deficiencies in their vocals, and thankfully the audience calmed down and stopped singing along as the band gradually lulled them into a coma with one of the most musically indulgent, ponderous and dull rock shows I’ve ever stood through.

There’s no question that when Mastodon rock, they can rock with the best of them. Sadly they choose to wank 99% of the time. If I wanted to watch dudes jerk off I could’ve stayed home and logged onto homohandjobs.com.

After boring all but their most dedicated fans half to death by playing Crack The Skye in its entirety, the four members left the stage while their moustachioed fill-in keyboardist made spooky sound effects. Give me a big, expensive keyboard and I reckon I could do that too.

The band then came back and played a forty-minute “encore” of older material, and even though this contained many more rockin’ moments than the first half, they’d killed the vibe long ago.

When the crowd is cheering more at the start of your set than at the end, you’re just not doing it right.