Well, glad to hear there are a handful who might see this show
Here's a little reveiw for those who might be interested:
Doors were open at 6:30, I got there for 4:45 with a line of 20 people already in front of the doors (as I figured). My friends (Ben and Derek, my bandmates; Miranda a good friends of ours; Nick, who'd more friends with Ben and Derek but who's still alright; and Steve, a friend of mine and everyone else who moved here last year from England) showed up about 5:30 and we froze our asses off in about -20 degree celcius temps. Which sucked. Then, they opened the doors 10 minutes late, to which there was a huge rush. Being stocky, I heald back the crowd behind just to get in all of my friends before me (which wasn't fun, I got a lot of ugly glares, but whatever). Anyways, were were finally seated, and since it was rush, we got in to the
third row center stage, which was awesome beyond belief, and worth my freezing my ass off for 2 hours to get in. Finally there, I went off and bought a Gojira tee and a rum 'n' coke, and settled in for an awesome show:
This four-piece from France were the heaviest band at the show, mixing some technical death metal with black metal and coming out sounding like a halfton was driving over you. Gotta say this: a group of very talented musicians who I hope will go places. The singer had this ghostly, deep howl which just flew into the crowd, and their relatively short set (at 4, perhaps 5 songs) was very sick. Randy Blythe, the singer from Lamb of God, cited Gojira's
From MArs to Sirus as his favourite album of 06, and I can definitly see why. Heck, I even tried to pick up a copy at The Armoury (
the place in Winnipeg to get metal, hardcore and industrial) but they were all sold out due to the fever that this concert was creating among metal circles. Personally, I can't wait t get my hands on a copy. Wow, 4.5 \m/
/ 5\m/ for a steller, brutal performance.
Next up was:
These guys have been around for awhile, and I've actualy never heard any of their music - although the crowd, who were singing along to most of the set was to one degree or another. But WOW were these guys good as well, playing about a half-dozen songs in the thrash/groove metal genre. Great band to headbang to, and the guitarist/vocalist was backed up by a second guitarist and a bassist who assisted with some great gang vocals in some songs. The sounds was tight, and the crowd
loved these guys - including me! I can't even decribed it, it was like thunderous roar from the crowd that didn't give up the entire time, and the singer was taken back a bit - he was chatting the crowd up a bit and said he "couldn't beleive how nuts you guys (us, the crowd) were" - and then promised to come back! I have to say that despite being only the second up in a lineup of four, they stole the show with that. A loud, unforgiving 5 \m/
/ 5 \m/ for an amazing performance.
Next up:
Bleh. I own both
Acendancy and
The Crusade, and while there are a handful of decent traks on either, their live show sucked. It was terrible, absolutely terrible. The drums, bass, backing vocals and the crowd could easily be heard over both guitarists and the vocalist, who has basically ripped off everything that was good about old Metallica (not that I'm a fan, but hear me out) and made it into some metalcore/thrash nightmare. I don't listen to Metallica, I don't really care for them, but the first time I heard the new album
The Crusade, I looked at my buddy Trevor, and he looked at me, and we said "wow this sounds like Metallica." In a recent issue of Hit Parader that I flipped through, I read an article with said singer, Matt Heafy, and he says he gave up the screams on
Ascendancy for singing. Well, this guy can't sing worth two silvers - not that you could hear him anyway. I mean, when the
backing vocalist was better at it then the supposed lead vocalist, you know there's trouble in "paradise". A dismal 1 \m/
/ 5 \m/ for decent guitar work when you could hear it, and good drumming and bass work - which is all you could.
Now, enough of bashing; here comes the headliners:
Oh Lamb of God, how I do love thee. But I gotta say that they were less then impressing. I'm not sure if it's because they are so used to huge arenas now, or what, but they were to me, less than impressive last night. Maybe a bit mechanical, perhaps - just going through the motions? I'm really not sure how to say it. In any case, they still played a wicked set of metal in the groove metal/
metalcore genres. Me and my friends got into the pit for Lamb of God, which was pretty crazy despite being at the normally tame (some might say anal) Burt. Stage-diving was allowed (or at least everyone was doing it
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
) So I boosted my buddy Derek over the front three rows of the pit onto the stage for the climax of "Now You've Got Something to Die For" and got Randy an earful of Randy screaming that very line into his face whilst crowd-surfing. He hasn't stopped thanking me for that
. 11th Hour, Ruin, Ashes of the Wake, Black Label, Now You've Got Something to Die For, Vigil, Laid to Rest, Descending, More Time to Kill, Blacken the Cursed Sun, Walk With Me in Hell, Pathetic, and Again We Rise were all on the playlist, IIRC. Personally, I'm more of a fan of
Ashes of the Wake-era LoG, but the set list, which drew heavily on their new album
Sacrament was still awesome - especially that amazing death grunt at the beginning of Balcken the Cursed Sun. Wow. But, despite everything, I still felt that Machine Head and even Gojira took the show. Maybe they were having an off day, or something, I have no iidea, but I was expecting something more, I guess, I'll give 'em 4 \m/
/ 5 \m/, with plenty of room for improvement next time they're in town
---
Well, that was the show. Gojira kicks ass, as does Machine Head. Trivium suck worse than I ever could have imagined, and Lamb of God seemed to be having an off-night. Overal, the Concert I'd rate at 4 \m/
/ 5 \m/, but if Trivium had been replaced by a band which, y'know, had talent, and LoG had stepped up their showmanship a it (Randy did a lot of talking, but was trying to be a crowd-pleaser or anything) then this easliy would have slid up to full marks. For now, I have a Lacuna Coil show to look forward to in May, as well as another heavy-hitter of Dimmu Borgir, DevilDriver, Unearth and Kataklysm in May as well, so I can't wait these next few months!
cheers,
--N (official ENW Metalhead)
