Video: Come preps reissue of masterpiece Eleven:Eleven, unearths 11 face-melting minutes of first-ever gig at Middle East

In the early 1990s, while our fair city's most ambitious musicians were angling towards Boston's holy trinity of power pop, grunge, and metal, Thalia Zedek and Chris Brokaw teamed up for COME -- an epic fucked up amazing rock n roll band that none of us ever really figured out how to describe. I think we sort of just threw out a bunch of adjectives like "angular" and "bloozy" and mentioned the Stones and the Gun Club and Patti Smith and hoped it was enough. It wasn't, but because they were beyond fantastic, but in spite of their utter originality they became revered . . . albeit in an era before being indie-famous actually resulted in making a decent living. Then the internet came along and rendered their entire of work completely un-googleable. As far as I can tell, they aren't on Spotify either. 

But for fuck's sake, what a great band. Kurt Cobain loved them. Nils Bernstein flew 3000 miles to come see their last official gig at the Middle East downstairs. Thalia still makes amazing solo records and Chris Brokaw's out in Seattle playing in a zillion bands, and they've reunited a couple times, so it's not like they've completely disappeared. But with Matador angling to re-issue their first album, Eleven: Eleven, in May (deluxe-style, with bonus tracks and a 1992 live set added, plus bonus 7-inch with the vinyl version), someone deduced that this here video on YouTube from March 1991 at the Middle East upstairs (which, of course, looks exactly the same as it does now) was Come's first-ever performance. They were already great. Check it out: