Concert Review: Airbourne

A crisp New England evening, just down the street from Harvard, gave way to a steady night of rock and roll, centered in the basement of the iconic Cambridge hangout The Middle East, as authentic a rock club as one can imagine.

We began with Bad Marriage, a locally based act of no small following, with dozens in the crowd cheering on their covers and originals alike.  Led by frontman JonnyP, who himself is one part Robert Plant and one part David Lee Roth, the band rocks along like the calendar still says 1979, and they’re frankly pretty good at it.  Between the swaying and swaggering and ohbytheway pretty decent music, this band represents the good of the devil-may-care attitude of classic rock.

Then we moved on to The Wild! (exclamation point is theirs, not mine.)  The throwback rockabilly blend issuing forth from these four rough-hewn Canadian musicians is both infectious and effective.  The band comes out swinging from the jump at about a hundred miles an hour (and with the band’s name and stylization, what other choice do they have?) and the boys seem intent on working with the audience until they win it over.  Their enthusiasm makes that task surprisingly simple, and within about three tunes the gathered throngs were all but enraptured, ready to sing along, clap, dance, jump or whatever else the band required of them.  Companion to that, the band entices participation by participating themselves – all the stage antics, from the spins to the kicks to the jumps – are choreographed, thus showcasing all those little things that enhance the set and ensnare the crowd’s attention.  Now that’s not to say that The Wild! are some kind of sham act, much the opposite – it’s an acknowledgment that these gents know what they’re doing and know how to win.  Never mind that the songs themselves are energetic and churning, even the comparatively slow blues ballad “What About You?”

Finally, the showpiece.  Airbourne, now roughly ten years into the game, knows how to do all those things that The Wild! did, but do them at an even more professional, streamlined level.  As much as the act may seem spontaneous and the personality of Joel O’Keefe certainly is, the true moments of showmanship have been honed over many years of practice.  O’Keefe’s patented bar walk, where he rides the shoulders of the nearest roadie over to the bar and then rocks out atop it, has been in the repertoire for the band since their debut tour.  Nevertheless, it remains an impressive and unique trick, in this case used early in the set to enhance the experience of “Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast.”

Even with the release of the new album “Breakin’ Outta Hell,” it was a night for classics from Airbourne, as they opened with “Ready to Rock,” the boisterous single from the previous record, “Black Dog Barking.”  Airbourne mixed in tunes from their entire catalogue, including a heavy-handed and welcome “No Way But The Hard Way” which included the crowd chanting in full throat and O’Keefe gleefully swinging a spotlight over the crowd to encourage more help in the chant.

For their worth, the two new tunes on the evening, the title track and “Rivalry” popped with all the vigor and virility one would expect from an Airbourne show.  The new songs, especially the latter, sound right at home in the middle of the set, accompanied by the traditional Airbourne bombast and blitzkrieg.

For all that, though, the highlights of the evening, as one might expect, came from 2007’s electric debut “Runnin’ Wild,” to date still the best and most accomplished Airbourne record.  Five cuts in total, led by an adrenaline-inducing reproduction of the deep album cut “Girls in Black,” which was impressive both for its snappiness and for the pure weight of its punch.  All of the material from this record sounded suitably great, be it the good cheer of “Stand Up for Rock and Roll” or the measured chaos of encore closer “Runnin’ Wild.”

Two notes on the side – first, at a neat and tidy eleven songs, the set went by like a Bob Gibson playoff game, over and done in about an hour and ten minutes.  That’s not a bad thing, but there was some time lost to playful antics and unnecessary wandering, time which could have been spent cramming two or three more tunes in there.  Four albums in, the band certainly has enough material to choose from.  It’s a minor thing to gripe about, but it merits mention.  Second, O’Keefe has developed a gimmick of slamming a beer can into his head until it bursts open, which doesn’t seem like a good idea, but I’ll admit that the visual is pretty impressive.

The entire night, from beginning to end, was a night spent in the joyous cacophony of very loud rock and roll, and was a necessary reminder than the genre, in the classic sense, still has a lot of life left in it.  O’Keefe’s tried-and-true closing, that “as long as we’re alive, and as long as you’re alive, then rock and roll will never die,” is fitting testament to that.

Concert Review: Lacuna Coil

Anticipation was running high as the crowd filtered in, everyone well aware of the impending midnight release of Lacuna Coil’s new album “Delirium.”  In the meantime, everyone would have to make due with a full evening’s performance punctuated by new moments couched within old favorites.  Lacuna Coil gleefully took the stage, combining their confidence in their performance with their own personal excitement over their new album.  With that, the fans focused in and the lights went low and the show was on.

Located literally in the middle of the Casino of the Earth at Mohegan Sun, the Wolf’s Den is a uniquely presented venue, part club and part open-air stage, slot machines in easy view as patrons who did not arrive early enough to get inside the gate instead hung out leaning on it.  The sound is good and the sight lines very good, but it does present an odd stage for a metal show – as Cristina Scabbia herself joked, being in the middle of the casino made it feel like she should be singing Celine Dion covers.

The attention of the casino patrons was snapped to the stage as the band began the evening with the head-banging rhythm of “Nothing Stands In Our Way” as the assembled devotees cheering loudly and in full throat.  It was impossible to be anywhere in the immediate vicinity of the Casino of the Wind and not be overwhelmed with the power of the band’s sound; it permeated all through the area, attracting many to the rail and pushing the woefully uninitiated away from their slots.

Decked-out entirely in a straitjacket motif, the band continued the hits of “Broken Crown Halo” by rolling into “Die & Rise,” thus assuring all present that this would be more a night to celebrate new classics than past histories.

The album “Dark Adrenaline,” which some critics panned as ‘too pop’ at the time of its release, was vindicated through the band’s recitation of multiple excellent selections over the course of the evening.  “Fire,” a song built to tap toes and possess crowds to sing along, may have been the evening’s best selection, Scabbia smiling through the uplifting chorus, further exhorting the crowd to participate.  Those gathered in the inner circle of the casino club gladly took part in the show, repeatedly showing their love for the band in an infectious, friendly atmosphere.

“Cybersleep,” a beautiful tune that sounds more like a James Bond theme song than anything else, thrilled the crowd, even if meant Andrea Ferro had to momentarily take a back seat.  What astonishes the most is the way Scabbia can sing this piece album-perfect, making the life performance live and breathe every bit as much as the one listeners are used to.

Naturally, there were a few teasers of “Delirium” sprinkled throughout, in the form of the title track for starters.  The first single, “House of Shame” changed the mood of the show into a deeper hue, much the way this new record stands as a darker exhibition of the songwriting prowess of Lacuna Coil.  The band, new members injecting a sense of fresh enthusiasm into the proceedings, was all business for this cut, pounding out the sinister bass rhythm while Ferro and Scabbia erected the harmonies, bringing the song to life.

Of course, even as much as this was a celebration of Lacuna Coil in the new decade, there were some throwbacks to the heady days more than a decade ago when the band was first becoming known on these shores.  It’s hard to envision a Lacuna Coil show where the band doesn’t indulge the crowd with “Heaven’s a Lie,” but an energetic run-through of “Swamped” came as a pleasant surprise.

Close to the end, after playing one crowd favorite after another, the band kicked off the show’s closing act with their cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” demanding that the audience help them through the chorus.  A two-song joyous and lionized performance of “Zombies” and “Our Truth” encouraged the crowd to embrace their individualism, and then with fans chanting and cheering, the band soaking in their adulation and reciprocating graciousness, the show was over, the bright lights of the slot machines weirdly accentuating the ongoing reverie of the fans.

Concert Review: Texas Hippie Coalition

The release of “Dark Side of Black” marked an important pivot for Texas Hippie Coalition, as the band demonstrated the ability to shift between musical gears while still keeping the engine running without a hitch.  The resultant tour promised to be a celebration of this new found array of possibilities, a chance for fans old and new to relive favorite memories and connect with new ones.

First though, the Sons of Texas.  Formed in 2013 and signed to Razor & Tie (who are quietly putting together a rather interesting roster,) the band just by their mere appearance promised the gathered faithful another set of down-and-dirty southern groove metal.

The band did not disappoint, blasting through a collection of singles from their debut full length “Baptized in the Rio Grande.”  That title track woke the crowd up, flanked by powerful anthems like “Blameshift” and “Pull It and Fire.”  Sons of Texas was essentially given forty minutes to do as much damage as they could, and the band ripped through one end of their setlist and cleanly out the other, leaving behind an audience who may not have been familiar, but flocked to the merch table when it was over.

Here’s the key to their success – nobody likes Sons of Texas more than Sons of Texas does, and when you’re a new band in an unfamiliar part of the country, selling the sizzle, making the fans believe that yours is a show worth investing in, is a huge step in the right direction.  Vocalist Mark Morales reminds of a Texas version of Dani Filth (in appearance only,) and he pairs with bassist Nick Villarreal (who is secretly the heart of this operation,) to lead the band through a pile of good-natured, enjoyable self-aggrandizement.  This is all meant as a compliment.  Sons of Texas knows how to sell Sons of Texas.

And then it was time for the feature performance.  The front of the pit, previously sparsely populated, filled in.  Fans filed down for a better view of the headline show, an act that promised thunder and crushing Texas groove, covering all who had gathered in scads of red dirt.

The set began with “Hands Up,” not a new song to the surprise of many, but one that effectively communicates what the evening’s agenda will be like.  The bass of John Exall thuds like dense rubber as Big Dad Ritch bellows through his choruses and threatening verses, all the while singing into a giant shotgun-shaped mic stand.  This continued through the first new song of the evening “Come Get It,” and then into another crowd favorite, “El Diablo Rojo.”

The moment of greatest anticipation came in the middle though, as the band rolled into “Angel Fall,” the new single from their surprisingly expansive new album.  The song is unlike any other in the Texas Hippie’s catalogue, a pairing of thrash breakdowns and groove verses unlike any they’ve written, so there was a natural curiosity to see it played live.  The Texans (and one Oklahoman,) obliged, crushing out a song equally as dense as its recorded counterpart, guitarist Cord Pool sharp with his riffs and Ritch equally sharp with his verses.

Something was off, though.  The band’s music was as tight and explosive as it had always been, but the set felt workmanlike; the sense of fun was off, the attitude, such a critical piece of the band’s presentation, was wrong.  Eventually, Big Dad Ritch came sullenly to the stage, and, in an emotional display, explained how the band had lost a dear friend unexpectedly just the day before.  It was a vulnerable moment from an artist, and group of artists, who certainly didn’t need to defend themselves, but it turned the rest of the evening, beginning with a sing along of “Hit it Again,” into a different kind of special experience; a sharing of burden between performer and fan alike.  The crowd, enthused before, added empathy now, helping to urge the band on through their pain, showing their appreciation loudly and frequently.

We finished with the requisite “Pissed Off and Mad About It,” one of the rare times in the evening that THC dipped into their back catalogue.  It was an excellent, gritty performance through difficult circumstances, put on by a group of consummate professionals.  Their effort is appreciated.  Godspeed, gentlemen.

A Joyous Night of Rock Revival - Graveyard Concert Review

The Brooklyn Bowl is, to say the least, a unique place to see a show.  Naturally, when a common concert attendee sees the name ‘Bowl,’ the natural assumption is that we’re talking about a place shaped like an amphitheater, indoors or out, capable of pristine audio and a thoroughly dignified concert experience.  The Brooklyn Bowl by contrast, while certainly dignified and in possession of pretty good aural reproduction, nevertheless asserts its name in a different fashion, as a fully functional bowling alley, in companionship with the normal amenities of a concert venue.  While a pleasant surprise, the sensation of walking in for the first time is not unlike Otto Mann’s reaction on “The Simpsons” upon leaving a store called ‘Stoner’s Pot Emporium.”

The night began with Spiders, the four-piece retro rock act that is bravely trying to change the common musical word association with “The Gothenburg Scene.”  To lead the evening was the power and circumstance of “Mad Dog,” the band’s best riff and most infectious song, which immediately sent the crowd into a head-nodding paroxysm of appreciation.  The focal point of Spiders is vocalist Ann-Sofie Hoyles, who channels the music into her being and allows the power of the groove to bodily move her about the stage.  She dances, stomps, twists and gyrates, kneeling to feel the power of the beat and swinging into the microphone for a performance that’s surprisingly consistent, given all the kinetic energy being expended.  Hoyles’ presence is uniquely her own, but for the sake of argument is somewhere between Janis Joplin and Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes.  While Spiders performed a tight set behind her, Hoyles was the full story (despite the delightfully over-the-top feathered lapels of bassist Olle Griphammar,) capturing the audience’s attention and making fans out of many.

Graveyard.  As if they needed to prove it on this night, in the argument for best active rock band on Earth.  The four piece led by Joakim Nilsson comes out to the stage without assuming any particular air; they are there simply to perform for the gathered masses, which had filled in by this time, anxious with anticipation.  Many bands set the tone for their set by projecting an image, but Graveyard stands apart in that the band members allow the tone of the songs to set the attitude of the performance.  It seems like an elementary notion, and it’s difficult to explain in words, but Graveyard manages to almost take a back seat to their own songs.

While the energy of some of Graveyard’s pieces are a talking point, the real star of their set on this night were the slow, measured, heavily blues-laden pieces that so successfully dot their albums.  Beginning the set was “No Good, Mr. Holden,” a gem from “Hisingen Blues,” that swayed and undulated with deep, throwback groove.

It is rare in music to discover an album that sounds like an old friend from the first few listens.  It is rarer still to discover that that album takes on entirely new and virile dimensions when it is exhibited live.  Such is the case with Graveyard’s “Innocence and Decadence,” which is quickly coming up on six months old.  “From a Hole in the Wall,” featuring the smoother vocals of new(ish) bassist Truls Mörck exploded forth from the stage, rousing the gathered throng and giving perhaps just a small window of what it might have been like to see Cream perform in their heyday.  The psychedelic influence on “I&D,” though subtle, helped differentiate and diversify the set, as the paced swing of “Cause and Defect” shifted into the leaping drive of “The Suits, The Law and the Uniforms,” keeping the set moving and the crowd interested.

The standouts of Graveyard’s performance, almost unilaterally, were the love songs, or perhaps more appropriately, the songs concerning love and relationships.  “Too Much is Not Enough,” a song that sounds slightly overdone on the album, comes alive in this setting, the other band members taking the place of the recorded chorus and the tones of Jonatan Larocca-Ramm’s guitar finding depth in reverb.  By the time the set wound down to a thunderous “Uncomfortably Numb,” sweat dripped freely from Nilsson as he crooned the verses of a song that has always sounded like an inverted “Free Bird.”

Yet for all that, the set’s most emotional moment came in the encore, as Nilsson emerged alone and lit only on one side by a single stage light, strummed and sang through “Stay For a Song,” the powerful ballad which had the crowd mouthing the lyrics and the fashionable ladies of Brooklyn swaying in appreciation.  The performance was perfectly dotted by the subtle ovation the rest of the Graveyard received from the crowd as they took their places to continue the evening.  Ultimately, the band said goodnight following the bigger-than-life organized blues chaos of “The Siren,” and the crowd was left smiling, knowing they had just seen professionals put on. a. show.

Graveyard stands poised to take on the world.  And they just might win.

Concert Review: Soilwork, Soulfly

Fall has a unique place in New York City’s culture and climate, as the concrete jungle bears no color-changing leaves, but the change in the air portends the coming of winter and the residents embrace the challenge, their usual resolve keeping them warm as the winds howl colder and the air gets hollow.  Knowing that their time to comfortably partake of the outside air is limited, the city bustles on, all eyes glued to one unfettered tradition that the fall also brings; playoff baseball.  Even the world of metal music, forever the dominion of outcasts and generally secular to organized sport, was abuzz not only with the excitement of seeing two metal heavyweights together, but the blitzing fall campaign of the New York Mets.

As Soilwork took to the stage, it was immediately clear that this was a night for professional metal musicians to showcase their talent.  The Swedish veterans opened with the title track of their new album “The Ride Majestic,” and the race was on to pack as much metal fury as possible into the shortest amount of time.  Even on the comparatively small stage Soilwork seemed larger than life, thundering through old favorites like “Bastard Chain” and celebrating the tenth anniversary of “Stabbing the Drama” with classics like “Nerve.”  Dirk Verbeuren, for all the talent that surrounds him, remains the most hypnotic figure on the stage when Soilwork is playing.  He never fails is making his flurry of complicated arm motions and coordinated kicking look easy, which belies just how talented the backbone of the backbone of the band’s rhythm section is.

More than that though, Soilwork impresses with their ability to create palpable force with their volume and precision.  A song like “Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter” is difficult to replicate without falling into the abyss of distortion and chaos, but on this night it was sharp and effective, the powerful voice of Bjorn Strid cutting through the melody to keep the song on track.  The set’s most impressive moments came near the end, again combining both new and old favorites.  “Petrichor in Sulphur” rang into the rafters and swayed the gathered masses, while “Stabbing the Drama” then hammered everyone back into the ground, each measure another reminder of what well-crafted, experienced metal sounds like.

Eyes were focused TVs showing the Mets game between sets as they pushed toward clinching the NL pennant.  A gentleman near rooted heartily, telling a friend "I don't really care about baseball, but they've got the whole city excited, so I'm getting into it." But when the time came for Soulfly, the crowd was ready.  Speaking of, the crowd on this particular night was great by any standard, but particularly excellent for a crowd in the middle of the week.  They moved, they danced, they moshed, they jumped on command and continued until told to stop.  Just when it seemed like metal crowds had begun to lose their steam on the whole, this collection of people would reaffirm the belief that metal fans are game anytime, anywhere.

Soulfly, in simple terms, rocked.  They crushed necks with opener “We Sold Our Souls to Metal,” and really never let off the gas, careening hastily into “Archangel” and “Blood Fire War Hate,” which stirred the masses into a frenzy.  Just when it seemed that the temperature in the theater was at full tilt, along came a rendition of Sepultura classic “Refuse/Resist,” which tore the top off the place and had bodies flying in all directions to the throwback rhythms of Brazilians thrash from a few decades back.

What strikes when watching Soulfly is just how comfortable Zyon Cavalera looks being in the band.  One would expect him to appear like a nervous twenty-two year old kid, especially sharing the stage with a famous father, but Zyon looks like an old veteran, pounding out beats with confidence and metronomic precision.  Max Calavera, to his credit, clearly plays the part of prideful father on stage, never really drawing attention to the relationship between vocalist and drummer, but it remains evident in his manner.

There was no relenting as the band smashed through “Sodomites” and “Tribe,” continuing their assault with heavy-handed South American rhythms and thick, crunchy guitars.  The encore was a who’s-who of crowd favorites, both from Soulfly and Sepultura.  It’s easy to forget that “Back to the Primitive” was written fifteen years ago because on this night as in many others, it still sounds so virile and moves bodies with a throaty rumble.  After that, the crowd’s meter was stuck on adulation, begging for more from Max before the night ended.  He obliged them by reaching into the back catalogue for “Roots Bloody Roots” which stood as one of the band’s best performances of the night, the crowd singing and thrashing along in full chorus.

Metal is often guilty of hanging onto the past too closely, worshipping those who have come before regardless of their changes or manner.  By contrast, these two bands are both worthy of that praise and keep the genre rooted by providing an example of how cathartic and energizing metal can be.

Concert Review: Overkill, Symphony X

A combination of Overkill and Symphony X means a number of things for the fans gathered in front of the stage prepared to display their reverence for the acts to follow.  It means gold ole’ American thrash still lives, it means power metal and the theatrics of the metal keyboard still have a foothold on the audience and it means New Jersey is solidly ‘in the house’ as the kids say (do kids still say that?)  Most of all though, it means that two titans of their respective genres maintain relevancy and drawing power with the addendum that no one, repeat no one, is going to tell them that they’re done.

The night began with Within the Fire, a rowdy quartet of veteran players who exhibit the fundamental grit of metal in the classic sense.  No frills, no pageantry, no costumes, just jeans and boots and gritty dirt riffs styled no so different from recent releases from Attika 7.  Notable in the band’s performance is the vocal styling of Scott Featherstone, who carries a tune capably but without the pomp and circumstance of post-production smoothness.  His voice is authentic and loud, brazen enough to be heard in the back of the club and clear enough to be understood.  For songs like “Still Burning,” his voice is buffeted by a wall of powerful chords, presenting a single, solid chunk of music that the assembled patrons reacted well to.

A heavy testing of a considerable array of bright green lights between sets could only portend one thing – Overkill was coming.  The New Jersey thrash veterans, coming off the impressive chart performance of “White Devil Armory” and literally hours removed from the release of “Historikill,” their new retrospective box set, the quintet had two clear missions in mind; first, prove to all present that thrash never died and furthermore, cannot die and second, do their damndest in friendly competition with the other bands to put on the most impactful set of the night.

A quick aside – Overkill spent much of the night fighting an uphill battle against a crowd who was appreciative and cheerful, but reluctant to get physically involved in the concert experience.  There were scads of perfectly capable young men and women in the offing, but a real mosh pit never broke out, which speaks to a disturbing observational trend of late: is it me, or are mosh pits starting to fade away?  It’s been a while since I’ve seen a convincing launching of bodies against one another, which bodes poorly for the practice as a whole.  C’mon metal fans, don’t stop doing what we do, keep this thing moving!

Back to it.  As if to drive the point of their continued and recent dominance over the genre home, the incomparable Bobby Blitz ran out and rolled into his idiomatic rasp for “Armorist,” pushing the band through the top track from the band’s top-selling record.  Overkill remains more than just Blitz though, as the venerable co-founder D.D. Verni stands always next to him on the stage, thumping out bass rhythms as though 1985 were just yesterday.

To that end, the set was a mix of new and old material, with the thirtieth anniversary of the band’s cardinal “Feel the Fire” release heavily represented, beginning with the classic “Hammerhead.”  The old guard of Overkill’s catalog sounded just as fresh and powerful as ever from a live perspective, which is a credit to the dedication and conviction of those playing the songs.  There was no favoritism from the band here; each piece was treated with the necessary respect and then pumped through hundreds of watts of amps to wash over the rejoicing crowd.

For all the joy of going through the new and old of Overkill, it was two albums in between those points which stole the show.  2010’s “Ironbound” contributed two fan favorites which have always provided the masses with instant, neck-breaking thrash rejuvenated in the new millennium.  “Bring Me the Night” has been a staple of the band’s repertoire since its release and this night’s recitation was of a heavier caliber than most, accented by the strong drum cadences of Ron Lipnicki.  “Ironbound,” with its cacophonous but intrinsically rhythmic breakdown, pushed the crowd into a nearly involuntary paroxysm of head-banging.  It couldn’t be helped, your body simply demanded that you do it.

Yet for all that, Overkill impressed most with an all double-neck version of the timeless nail driver “Skullkrusher” from 1989’s “The Years of Decay,” and as the churning waves of irresistible force eroded the fans’ resistance, heads moved in unison and throats rang in cheer as the shambling, threatening cadence rumbled into the set’s eventual conclusion.  Ever the professionals, Overkill wrapped up with “Elimination” and “Fuck You” and left the masses wanting more.

Symphony X began their set with a statement of continued support for their newest album.  The first seven tracks that Russell Allen and company cranked out for fans thirsty to hear their heroes were played in order from 2015’s “Underworld,” each one played with the appropriate amount of power and grace.

Allen himself is a bone fide showman, relishing his role as the central figure and face of the band’s performance, and his talent lives up to the billing.  No less an authority than Bobby Blitz says Allen has the best pipes in the business, and when encountering the sheer power and sustaining impression of the man’s voice live, it’s difficult to argue against the point.  Whether carrying a longing tune for “Without You” or raising the rafters with “Nevermore,” Allen’s consistency pairs with his versatility to add dynamic layers to Symphony X’s live profile on the whole.

He is not alone, however.  On this night, as it likely is on many nights, guitarist Michael Romeo was due equal billing alongside his lead singer.  With each passing song, Romeo’s solos got stronger, particularly as the band started delving into their back catalog.

In truth, the finest part of Symphony X’s set was the back half of it, beginning with a melodic and galloping “Of Sins and Shadows,” and the progression only got better as the set went on, flying through an excellent “Serpent’s Kiss” and an energetic “Eve of Seduction.”

Part of the secret of Symphony X at this point in their career is that this band has more or less been unchanged since the late nineties, and the band employs that rare chemistry that can only be seen when members trust each other and have a complete understanding of their music.  This was evident in throughout the entirety of the band’s performance, but never more than in the closers “Set the World on Fire (The Lie of Lies)” and “Iconoclast,” both high-flying songs and fan favorites that might well go very badly if a lesser band played them.

Leaving the venue, the irrefutable lesson gleaned from the remarkably adept performances of the two headline acts was this; there is no replacement for experience.

Concert Review: GWAR 30th Anniversary Tour

There are two competing impossibilities walking into a GWAR show on this tour.  First, that the band has really been around for thirty years and where-does-the-time-go, while the second, and perhaps more impossible impossibility, is that such a band could survive, and indeed thrive, for thirty years in the first place.

The battle, such as it was, began appropriately enough with Battlecross, the raucous band of thrash upstarts who specialize in the abstract concepts of ‘loud’ and ‘fun.’  As we discussed not so long ago with the release of their recent album, Battlecross works best as a singles band who can produce electric moments.  So it stands to reason that seeing them live is essentially a gleeful highlight showcase, and such was the case on this evening.  Battlecross, when they slam into “Force Fed Lies” to lead their set, marks an important pace car for the rest of the evening.  The fury of their sound, the resounding ring of their guitar tone and the eminent pleasure they get from playing sets the bar awfully high for everyone who follows.  This trend continued whether new or old material, while singer Kyle Gunther plays his humorous hand to the crowd, extolling the virtues of purchasing a t-shirt in order to prevent your car from being destroyed by GWAR’s ‘spew.’  Within all that though, the band fired off two of their classics, one of which is an all-timer.  “Flesh and Bone” remains the most potent song in the band’s arsenal, sounding every bit as powerful and neck-ruining as it does on disc, while “Push Pull Destroy” is ever the thundering clarion of the band.  The crowd, while seemingly not wholly familiar with the band, ended up both appreciative and enthralled.

Which takes us to Butcher Babies.  There is no ambiguity to the presentation of this band and what our eyes are supposed to be attracted to.  The energetic gyrations and machinations of Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey is both enticing and alluring.  There is a certain unavoidable charisma not only in the obvious physical embellishment of the pair, but in the overflowing attitude of chaotic encouragement that permeates all that they do.  The other two band members wear nothing but common stage black, almost as though they are not allowed to have personality that might rival the dynamic duo at the front of the stage.  For all that, the pounding that characterizes all of the band’s singles and doesn’t always translate on a recorded medium works reasonably well at stirring the crowd into comparative madness.  Fan favorites like “Blonde Girls All Look the Same” and “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” were equally adept at selling the band’s wares, both songs a flurry of flowing, dyed hair and stomping Chuck Taylors on the stage, with the accordant milling and smashing of the mosh pit below.  The set continued much in this fashion, never relenting all the way through the final note of the set’s closer “Magnolia Blvd.”

The final act of course was the thirtieth anniversary tour of GWAR, their second sojourn since the untimely passing of Oderus Urungus.  It would have been perfectly reasonable to expect that an anniversary tour would be chock full of nostalgia and random, gleefully sordid memories of yesteryear.  Say what you will about GWAR, but they have never been a band that looks backward, and so this tour would be no different. Where the last outing left us with the forlorn and failing mission to save Oderus from the perils of a time vortex he had been lost in, this new adventure picks up in a more corporeal setting.  The band, still trying to find their way in the wake of their loss, comes to find out that the internet at large is trolling them, and thus in typical somewhat-well-intentioned GWAR fashion they take steps to kill the internet.  Along the way is the usual spate of blood and gore and genuinely funny banter centered on otherwise outrageously offensive subject matter.  GWAR, as ever, is so adept at engaging in the absurd that what would be scandalously inappropriate in any other social conversation seems perfectly at home here.

The only indication that GWAR was willing to acknowledge the passing of thirty years was that they unearthed a lot of old material that fans had likely stashed away in their memory as songs that ‘GWAR doesn’t play anymore.’  Chief among these selections, to the surprise of the gathered throng, was “Jack the World” known to GWAR fans mostly as ‘that song on “This Toilet Earth” that ISN’T “Saddam A Go-Go.”  Not content to stop the memory train there, GWAR soldiered through a goodly chunk of their back musical forty, including going all the way back to heartfelt recitations of “I’m in Love (With a Dead Dog)” and “Captain Crunch” from 1988’s “Hell-O.” 

What’s important to note is that GWAR approached both new and old material (of which the balance was about an even split,) with equal fervor and dedication.  Continuing in the new GWAR workflow, the band lets different members take their assorted turns at the lead vocals, which does lend for a rangy performance.  That said, Blothar carries the bulk of the material himself, leading the collective way through “Madness at the Core of Time,” and other popular new material including the seminal “Metal Metal Land.”  In this regard, the band has lost no steam at all, each individual musician remains just as talented as ever, which has been an increasingly important trait of GWAR in the last ten years.

That said, the show still isn’t the same without Oderus.  It’s still enjoyable and highly entertaining, and watching the band tear the skin off of and defeat ‘The Internet Troll’ at the show’s climax still gives a sense of reward to the viewer; none of that has been altered.  Nevertheless, the boots of Oderus remain difficult to fill.  Not impossible, as this tour already shows the band at a greater level of cohesion than the previous, but it will take time.

In the here and now, GWAR as ever remains GWAR.  There will always be “Sick of You,” there will always be colored fluid, and it will always be a show worth seeing.  That’s really the bottom line.

Concert Review: Coal Chamber, Fear Factory

The “Rivals” tour, in many ways, was a tour that shouldn’t have been.  The two headliners, Fear Factory and Coal Chamber, both had been through a lifetime of musical acrimony, an almost stage-worthy amount of triumphs and battles and reconciliation to rise again.  Nobody would have blamed either band if they had decided to call it a day years ago, but the furnace of metal’s molten heart churns with fervor, so each band has continued on the path.  Now, some twenty years after Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares first started peddling Coal Chamber’s demo tape, the two bands share the stage.

Fresh off the road from an extensive tour of Europe with Hatebreed, Jamey Jasta wasn’t content to sit around and wait for another opportunity.  As he explained to the crowd, when you get the call from Dez Fafara asking to go on the road and play in support of this particular twin bill, you have no choice but to accept.  With that in mind, Jasta pulled together his solo metal project of the same name and immediately turned around to hit the highway again, this time with thirty more minutes of heavily rhythmic, crowd-exciting material.  Jasta wasn’t content to stick just to their catalogue, even as the headbanging excitement of “Nothing They Say” washed over the crowd at large and the mosh pit in particular.  Jasta reached back into the catalogue of music they love, pulling out a fiery cover of Running Wild’s “Soldiers of Hell,” to the delight of the older fans in attendance.  Jasta the man, over and above the other band members onstage, was a smiling dynamo, happy to be anywhere playing music where people were gathered to hear it.  With a flourish and a promise of more Hatebreed to come, the set was over, leaving the crowd primed for the industrial evening of metal to come.

Fear Factory’s set could have gone a lot of different ways.  With their new album “Genexus” less than a week old, one might have expected that the band would lean heavily on new material for their set.  To accompany this, it would have fallen right in line for FF to concentrate their efforts on songs that have been written since the re-unification with Cazares.

Ever the crowd pleaser, Fear Factory instead decided to start as they always start – with “Shock,” a song from 1998, arguably one of the greatest crowd inciters ever, as the bass drops and a whole new generation of moshers take to slamming into one another.  Not inclined to let the momentum subside, “Shock” naturally had to transition into “Edgecrusher,” cascading over the frenzied masses in a tidal wave of beat-driven industrial.  The past would continue to hold court throughout the set, as “Powershifter” gave way to “What Will Become” and “Damaged,” two memorable cuts from the often forgotten and overlooked “Digimortal.”

Naturally, the new songs, when the band displayed them, stood up just as well as the old, the pounding of “Soul Hacker” and the charged current of “Dialectric” exciting the newer fans who were just coming to the band for the first time.

Yet the show to this point felt incomplete.  There was a giant gap in the programming schedule that felt conspicuously empty.  2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Fear Factory’s greatest song writing triumph, “Demanufacture.”  Bell and company made the crowd wait patiently until the very end, smiling from ear to ear while ripping into the title track of that seminal album, and closing the show, as they always do, with a stunningly powerful “Replica.”

Which brought the proceedings lastly to Coal Chamber.  There was palpable anticipation surrounding the band’s set swirling in eddies around the club, but very little sense of what the show would actually look like.  Thirteen years removed from their last album, Coal Chamber took the stage with more questions than answers floating above their heads.

Dez Fafara immediately dispelled some of the unworded queries by plunging himself headlong into the performance, channeling all the piss and vinegar that made his delivery so unique when the band debuted.  The gauntlet he had worn so long to cover his Coal Chamber tattoo during the DevilDriver tours had been summarily discarded, a silent pledge of his solidarity to whatever form this tour took.
Similar to the band on the stage before them, Coal Chamber focused their efforts on the songs that longtime fans wanted to see.  As seemed fitting, “Loco” opened the proceedings, establishing the crushing, beat-driven pace that would dictate the color and attitude of their set.  For all the long absence, the band surrounding Fafara seemed both relaxed and intent, striving to provide the paying customers with a show they’d be proud to say they witnessed.  “Big Truck” followed the opener, another punishing reminder of the days that were in the band’s halcyon era.

The new material from “Rivals” fared just as well in comparison to the old, with “I.O.U Nothing,” and “Another Nail in the Coffin” reflecting well against the dingy sheen of the pieces surrounding.  That was really a central theme of the entire set – that Coal Chamber may have left, but they remain the band upon their return, possessed of the same sensibilities and musical acumen as they utilized on their first run.

Now, does that mean that the new songs sounded just as good as timeless fan favorites like the steamroller or “I” or the infectious, singalong repetition of “Sway,” which capped off the evening?  If we’re being honest, probably not, but that’s not a fault of the band or the music – classics are so partly because they’ve had time to settle in, and those last two pieces were coupled with the catharsis of hearing them again for the first time in a while.

The one curious turn of the night was that Coal Chambers set blasted by in a brisk forty-five minutes or so, which was enough time to give the crowd what they wanted, but perhaps not quite enough to truly satiate long-dry thirst.  Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable effort, one that Dez punctuated by essentially telling the crowd that they were thrilled for the support, because there is currently no idea how, when or in what form Coal Chamber will continue, if at all.  With that last thank you, the lights came up, the house music started and the satisfied crowd made its way into a muggy summer night.