Concert Review #1

So yeah, we haven't posted in a while. As Mr. Mud said, I've had technical difficulties. A lot of them. As you can see, they've lasted since August. I wish I could hurry the adventure up, but I can't. However, in the meantime I'm going to post something that I don't think we've had here yet. A concert review. Last night, I saw the Monsters of Death tour. For those of you that don't know, it's a tour through North America headlined by a Polish Death Metal band called Vader, with about 5 bands opening. So, onto the actual review.

So last night I saw Vader, and the five bands that opened for them. I shall now type up a rather un-brief description of it, describing how cool it was. For a short summary, scroll to the bottom.

Swashbuckle
So I walked into the venue after these guys had played about a third of their set. I looked at them, and was in awe. They were all dressed like pirates, and had a palm tree on the stage. In the pit there was a guy (presumably with Swashbuckle) dressed as a shark, moshing. After quickly buying some merchandise, I went down and enjoyed the show. These guys are very entertaining live. Instead of getting the crowd to go "Hey! Hey! Hey!" they had us chanting "YO! HO! YO! HO!". I've known of pirate themed metal bands for a while now, but this is the first time I've ever seen one live, and I must say that they made quite an impression. There's just something incredibly entertaining about a bunch of guys singing about bottles of rum and sailing on the high seas. In the end, this band was simply really fun.

Augury
This band started being fun before they even started playing. During their sound check, the venue was playing Nightwish songs from Dark Passion Play over the speakers so loudly, that they couldn't hear their instruments well enough to judge the sound quality. They kept yelling desperately that the music should be turned down. Eventually, when the sound either ignored them, or just didn't hear them, they started dancing around like it was pop music. Much of the crowd joined in, which led to good fun. Eventually, they got going. They played some very good progressive death metal, and as a reward for being a good crowd, they graced us with a beautiful bass solo. Their performance was good, although the vocalist had a shirt praising deathcore that some people in the crowd did not approve of.

The Amenta
This band certainly was weird. I didn't catch the beginning of their set, because I had seen Peter Wywczarek, and gone over to talk to him (in Polish!). But I quickly got back, and I was very entertained by them. They all looked fairly strange, with their faces lightly blackened by facepaint, the singer with his rather awesome leather boots and silver wolf-head belt buckle. The singer acted very....black metal, for someone who plays in a band that is industrial death metal. I had a hard time catching this band's name, since the vocalist always messed it up somehow when he said it, but I looked them up later. They were quite good.

Warbringer
Now this was probably the most entertaining part of the show during the night. Earlier, while Swashbuckle was playing, I had met and talked with their vocalist. Now, I had managed to get a spot right up in front against the stage (no barrier), so I had an excellent view. They started off with 3 songs on their new album, and kept kicking ass from their. They all were really into the music. One of their guitarists, John Laux, was so close to me I could have probably plucked his strings for him if I had wanted to. John Kevil (the vocalist) was a maniac, headbanging and jumping around. At some point the drummer from Swashbuckle ran on stage, and stage dived. John Kevil responded by saying "Yes, stage diving pirates are awesome! Arrrrr!" Later, Kevil stage dived himself, and was placed back on stage headfirst in a position that looked painful. Still, he got back up and managed to awe the whole crowd with how metal he was for the rest of the set.

Decrepit Birth
There's not too much I can really say about these guys. While these guys played, I rested up a bit because I had worn out my neck and voice during the last 4 bands, and I still needed all my headbanging power for when Vader came on. So I just stood and watched. They seemed to be fairly good death metal. They had live presence, and to a fan they probably would have very fun. I managed to catch a pick from the bassist, so I put it in my wallet so I wouldn't lose it. Then....I lost it. I feel kind of stupid about that.

Vader
And now for the headlining band. Really, they were simply fantastic. They played great songs, had lots of energy, nailed all the solos, Hyped up the crowd really well. A near perfect performance. Except for 2 issues. The first was that for some reason Peter's vocals were really low into the mix, so you could barely hear his growls. This was rather annoying. The other issue was that since there were a total of 6 bands playing that night, Vader's set was rather short, and they didn't get to play as many songs as I wish they would. This is especially a problem since they have a lot of short songs, so this really made it seem like their set wend by realy quickly. Still, they played some of my favorites such as Sothis, Silent Empire, and This Is The War, so I was overall happy with it. Things such as sound problems or short sets can't hold back a great band like Vader.

So overall, I would rate the show an 8/10. If you're a fan of any of these bands, then go ahead and check out this tour. It's well worth it.