Annual Free Weekend with Keelhaul/Megachurch/Party Plates/Free Medicine

These days, long-standing local metal act Keelhaul doesn’t play live very often. So this appearance, as the headliners of the second day of the Grog Shop’s “annual free weekend,” is definitely worth catching. The band’s motto is “too dumb to quit,” but the self-deprecating humor doesn’t do the group justice. For some 15 years now, the band can lay claim to the title as the city’s heaviest sludge rockers. It combines the doom metal approach of the Melvins with the more accessible stoner rock of Queens of the Stone Age. Its last album, 2009’s aptly titled Keelhaul’s Triumphant Return to Obscurity is a noisy blast of pure power tempered by intricate chord changes. Bring earplugs. (Jeff Niesel)