I been seein' some rock and roll shows
So I've seen a bunch of shows recently. Now, rather out of character, I'm going to talk about them in more than one-sentence "great show!" blurbs.
4/25: Dragonforce w/ Cynic @ The Rave
(missed the first opener at this one)
I felt bad for Cynic at this show, but they still didn't belong on the bill. I'd never heard of them before the show so my friends and I found ourselves wondering who the fuck this weird, spacey, jazzy, wanky band was and how on earth they got put on the Dragonforce tour where they obviously shouldn't be. Turns out back in the day (2000) they released a way-out-there prog metal album that fused vocoded/autotuned vocals mixed with death metal vocals, and thundering death metal rhythms that would suddenly break out into sus4add6add13 chord breakdowns with Allan Holdsworth-ish legato guitar solos. This record blew (some) people's minds, apparently, and is still generally regarded as a classic in the prog metal genre. They did a second album released only France not long after, then promptly broke up. Now, 8 years or so after their breakup, they've reformed and are working on a new record and touring with Dragonforce, somehow. It's a bummer. They should have toured with Jesu and Isis when those guys were on the road 'cos that would have been a perfectly matched triple-bill. As it was, their set went like this:
*song ends*
*new-age-y backing tracks start up*
*half the crowd starts chanting DRA-GON-FORCE! DRA-GON-FORCE!*
*a few stalwarts chant CY-NIC! CY-NIC! but they are outnumbered*
lead singer says, in a soft voice: "hey everybody...remember...to breathe. This is from our last album...it's called...Cosmic Voyage."
*33 people head for the bar*
In the end, they played fine, it just wasn't my thing, and it really wasn't a good match for that bill. Oh well. Hope the comeback goes well, guys.
Dragonforce was of course amazing. Lately I've heard people reciting bullshit rumors that DF can't really play, and that they do everything at half-time and then speed it up, and that everything is on tape live. *sigh* Look, people, if you believe that, then you're either not a musician, or you're a jealous musician. There's nothing they do that can't be recreated by any group of pro musicians willing to put in the ensemble practice time. Go watch a Racer X (the long-defunct 80s shred band with Paul Gilbert and Bruce Bouillett) video -- it's equally, if not more nuts than what DF does, and nobody questioned those guys. Also, if everything is on tape in the live show, then they do a really good job of pre-programming parts where the guys fuck up. Now that's dedication to fakery!
So anyway, fuck the haters; Dragonforce puts on a great show. They have strategically placed hair-blowing fans, trampolines, long solos, the keyboard player plays with his nose, it's all hilarious and perfect. DF does a great job of walking the line between "not taking themselves seriously" and "ironic posturing," like that godawful band The Darkness that was foisted off on us a while back. DF laughs at themselves, at metal cliches, and laughs with us, but all while playing with such tremendous technical facility that you have to take them seriously, even if only long enough to dismiss them as not your thing. I love 'em, and they rocked the shit out of the Rave (crappy sound as always!). The best part of this show, for me, was seeing it with people who had never caught a DF show before, and watching the big grins of enjoyment spread across their faces. How can you hate on a band that makes people so happy?
4/30: Mastodon w/ Kylesa @ Metro
(missed the first opener on this one)
Okay, so, Kylesa; you have a chick in the band, that's great. She's a gravel-voiced, gnarly metal chick singing and playing guitar in a metal band. Wonderful. Do you want a cookie? The days when just having a girl in a metal band meant you got a free pass are over, y'all; now you actually have to have things like songs, and riffs, and oh I dunno talent. Half-assed growly vox, two drummers for absolutely no good reason at all, and forgettable riffs. Blah. Back to the woodshed, guys.
I got the new Mastodon record the day it came out and have been listening to it quite a bit. Unfortunately, I think the last album, Blood Mountain, is the best one of the lot. I know Brendan O'Brien was brought in to smooth out some rough edges and get Mastodon arena-ready so they can tour with Metallica and shit, but unfortunately the hirsute rough edges of Mastodon's D&Dish Beard-Metal was really the best part, in my mind. The current live show consists of them playing the new album in its entirety, then coming out and doing select tracks of the previous three records.
When they do the new stuff, they have keys, backing tracks in strategic places, and everybody is singing, even Brann Dailor, whose insane and thunderous bebop-meets-death-metal drums are dialed considerably back, to the album's and show's detriment. Everyone is screwed up to a fever pitch of tension because they're doing so many new things at once and are unsure about it all and it unfortunately shows. Aside from the single, Oblivion and a couple choice moments in the three-movement suite The Czar, the new stuff was met with, well, let's just say it, polite applause.
Then, after a brief break in which they ditched Brann's vocal mic, the keyboard player, and the backing tracks, they came out and tore the fuck out of the rest of their set. It was like, "okay great that's out of the way, now we can relax and actually just play," and holy fuck did they play. They unloaded on their weirdest, hardest songs like Capillarian Crest and Bladecatcher which are fast, difficult songs to begin with, only they took everything approx. 12bpm faster, rendering Dailor's arms a blur as he navigated 64th-note snare-and-tom riffs, but the band never faltered for a second and everything was ridiculously tight and heavy. It was during this part of the set, in fact, that the people who proclaim Brann Dailor "the best drummer in the world," (of whom Dave Grohl is one), could really make a strong case for their belief. The crowd would've moshed but Metro was sold the fuck out and everyone was packed in so snugly no one could move.
All in all it was an excellent performance, and hopefully as they grow more comfortable with the new elements of the Crack The Skye live part of things, everything will be as intense as the last half of the set.
5/8: World Minus One w/ JosB @ BBC
My current drummer in The Dark Clan, Nic Fugate, invited me to this show as it featured one of his current projects (JosB), and one of his past projects (WMO). The two main songwriters in WMO were in a band with Nic called All Envy Aside and it was in this incarnation that they won an MTV "Battle of the Bands" thing the prize for which was a demo deal with a label and a pro video shoot. They had some good rotation on MTVU and shit, I guess, but then Fallout Boy happened and they vanished from the charts and eventually -- though I presume this wasn't totally related -- they broke up.
Both bands were a lot of fun, and overall I enjoyed the show. It was cool to watch Nic really get to unload his DMB chops in the Sublime-ish grooves of JosB, since TDC is more his straight-ahead rock gig and doesn't lend itself as much to that sound. It was also cool to hear songwriting done by contest-winning songwriters, i.e., Dan and Jake from WMO. They very much have their eyes on the FM rock radio prize and seem to have things down pretty well. While that sound isn't really my thing, I can certainly appreciate the skill and craft it takes to do it well, and these guys do it pretty damn well. If either band is in your neighborhood, check 'em out.
5/9: The Sounds w/ Hey Champ @ The Rave (Basement)
So the basement of the Rave was the only part of that venue I was yet to see a show in until this gig, and now I can say, without exception or hesitation, that the sound always sucks at The Rave, regardless of which venue you're in. I mean damn, guys, how hard is this? Anyway, Hey Champ was fine; they were sort of emosynthtastic and struck me as a third- or fourth-tier national act trying to level up. Nothing was wrong with their songs or their sound, but then nothing was also really particularly right. Sounded like they maybe have a ways to go.
As The Sounds came on I was thunderstruck by the small crowd. No way was there more than 200 people down there, and I might go as low as 150. Granted, it could just be Milwaukee. Unlike Chicago, we just don't have enough neo-new-wave hipsters in chunky-framed glasses, a scarf, a pastel cartigan, and cuffed jeans with low-top Pumas and no socks willing to come to a new-wave-revival show. Not saying that makes Milwaukee great or Chicago bad, necessarily, but that is kind of the typical American that might be into a band like The Sounds, and MKE ain't got many of 'em. Regardless, I was amazed at how few people had turned out to see what I thought was kind of a big-name act.
Which is too bad, 'cos they put on a great show. Nothing they do is amazing or revolutionary or whatever, but they do write fun new wave-ish pop songs and perform them superbly. Maja of course owned the stage but the band as a whole was really tight and never slipped for a second. The setlist was generously sprinkled with their hits, omitting only "Seven Days A Week," and even their new stuff came off well. A very fun show by one of my favorite guilty pleasure bands.
5/10: Gojira @ Logan Square Auditorium
(there were two openers that I missed)
Solid arrangements, airtight performance, great metal riffage. Seriously, if you like metal and you haven't seen Gojira live yet then you are really missing out. These guys are insanely tight and their drummer rocks the death-metal double-kick action like no one out there. He's not the complete drummer that Brann Dailor is, but his precision on the kicks is right up there with guys like Gene Hoglan. Everything is brutal and precise and brutally precise and not to be missed if the show comes to your town. Only bad thing about this gig was the venue, and once again there was a really small crowd, made smaller by the big empty auditorium we were all standing in. It's really pretty discouraging when bands of this stature are playing to half-empty halls. I dunno if that speaks ill of the bands' ability to draw, the promoters being lazy, the booking agents booking the wrong venue, peoples' unwillingness to go to shows, or what, but whatever it is, it's kind of depressing.
4/25: Dragonforce w/ Cynic @ The Rave
(missed the first opener at this one)
I felt bad for Cynic at this show, but they still didn't belong on the bill. I'd never heard of them before the show so my friends and I found ourselves wondering who the fuck this weird, spacey, jazzy, wanky band was and how on earth they got put on the Dragonforce tour where they obviously shouldn't be. Turns out back in the day (2000) they released a way-out-there prog metal album that fused vocoded/autotuned vocals mixed with death metal vocals, and thundering death metal rhythms that would suddenly break out into sus4add6add13 chord breakdowns with Allan Holdsworth-ish legato guitar solos. This record blew (some) people's minds, apparently, and is still generally regarded as a classic in the prog metal genre. They did a second album released only France not long after, then promptly broke up. Now, 8 years or so after their breakup, they've reformed and are working on a new record and touring with Dragonforce, somehow. It's a bummer. They should have toured with Jesu and Isis when those guys were on the road 'cos that would have been a perfectly matched triple-bill. As it was, their set went like this:
*song ends*
*new-age-y backing tracks start up*
*half the crowd starts chanting DRA-GON-FORCE! DRA-GON-FORCE!*
*a few stalwarts chant CY-NIC! CY-NIC! but they are outnumbered*
lead singer says, in a soft voice: "hey everybody...remember...to breathe. This is from our last album...it's called...Cosmic Voyage."
*33 people head for the bar*
In the end, they played fine, it just wasn't my thing, and it really wasn't a good match for that bill. Oh well. Hope the comeback goes well, guys.
Dragonforce was of course amazing. Lately I've heard people reciting bullshit rumors that DF can't really play, and that they do everything at half-time and then speed it up, and that everything is on tape live. *sigh* Look, people, if you believe that, then you're either not a musician, or you're a jealous musician. There's nothing they do that can't be recreated by any group of pro musicians willing to put in the ensemble practice time. Go watch a Racer X (the long-defunct 80s shred band with Paul Gilbert and Bruce Bouillett) video -- it's equally, if not more nuts than what DF does, and nobody questioned those guys. Also, if everything is on tape in the live show, then they do a really good job of pre-programming parts where the guys fuck up. Now that's dedication to fakery!
So anyway, fuck the haters; Dragonforce puts on a great show. They have strategically placed hair-blowing fans, trampolines, long solos, the keyboard player plays with his nose, it's all hilarious and perfect. DF does a great job of walking the line between "not taking themselves seriously" and "ironic posturing," like that godawful band The Darkness that was foisted off on us a while back. DF laughs at themselves, at metal cliches, and laughs with us, but all while playing with such tremendous technical facility that you have to take them seriously, even if only long enough to dismiss them as not your thing. I love 'em, and they rocked the shit out of the Rave (crappy sound as always!). The best part of this show, for me, was seeing it with people who had never caught a DF show before, and watching the big grins of enjoyment spread across their faces. How can you hate on a band that makes people so happy?
4/30: Mastodon w/ Kylesa @ Metro
(missed the first opener on this one)
Okay, so, Kylesa; you have a chick in the band, that's great. She's a gravel-voiced, gnarly metal chick singing and playing guitar in a metal band. Wonderful. Do you want a cookie? The days when just having a girl in a metal band meant you got a free pass are over, y'all; now you actually have to have things like songs, and riffs, and oh I dunno talent. Half-assed growly vox, two drummers for absolutely no good reason at all, and forgettable riffs. Blah. Back to the woodshed, guys.
I got the new Mastodon record the day it came out and have been listening to it quite a bit. Unfortunately, I think the last album, Blood Mountain, is the best one of the lot. I know Brendan O'Brien was brought in to smooth out some rough edges and get Mastodon arena-ready so they can tour with Metallica and shit, but unfortunately the hirsute rough edges of Mastodon's D&Dish Beard-Metal was really the best part, in my mind. The current live show consists of them playing the new album in its entirety, then coming out and doing select tracks of the previous three records.
When they do the new stuff, they have keys, backing tracks in strategic places, and everybody is singing, even Brann Dailor, whose insane and thunderous bebop-meets-death-metal drums are dialed considerably back, to the album's and show's detriment. Everyone is screwed up to a fever pitch of tension because they're doing so many new things at once and are unsure about it all and it unfortunately shows. Aside from the single, Oblivion and a couple choice moments in the three-movement suite The Czar, the new stuff was met with, well, let's just say it, polite applause.
Then, after a brief break in which they ditched Brann's vocal mic, the keyboard player, and the backing tracks, they came out and tore the fuck out of the rest of their set. It was like, "okay great that's out of the way, now we can relax and actually just play," and holy fuck did they play. They unloaded on their weirdest, hardest songs like Capillarian Crest and Bladecatcher which are fast, difficult songs to begin with, only they took everything approx. 12bpm faster, rendering Dailor's arms a blur as he navigated 64th-note snare-and-tom riffs, but the band never faltered for a second and everything was ridiculously tight and heavy. It was during this part of the set, in fact, that the people who proclaim Brann Dailor "the best drummer in the world," (of whom Dave Grohl is one), could really make a strong case for their belief. The crowd would've moshed but Metro was sold the fuck out and everyone was packed in so snugly no one could move.
All in all it was an excellent performance, and hopefully as they grow more comfortable with the new elements of the Crack The Skye live part of things, everything will be as intense as the last half of the set.
5/8: World Minus One w/ JosB @ BBC
My current drummer in The Dark Clan, Nic Fugate, invited me to this show as it featured one of his current projects (JosB), and one of his past projects (WMO). The two main songwriters in WMO were in a band with Nic called All Envy Aside and it was in this incarnation that they won an MTV "Battle of the Bands" thing the prize for which was a demo deal with a label and a pro video shoot. They had some good rotation on MTVU and shit, I guess, but then Fallout Boy happened and they vanished from the charts and eventually -- though I presume this wasn't totally related -- they broke up.
Both bands were a lot of fun, and overall I enjoyed the show. It was cool to watch Nic really get to unload his DMB chops in the Sublime-ish grooves of JosB, since TDC is more his straight-ahead rock gig and doesn't lend itself as much to that sound. It was also cool to hear songwriting done by contest-winning songwriters, i.e., Dan and Jake from WMO. They very much have their eyes on the FM rock radio prize and seem to have things down pretty well. While that sound isn't really my thing, I can certainly appreciate the skill and craft it takes to do it well, and these guys do it pretty damn well. If either band is in your neighborhood, check 'em out.
5/9: The Sounds w/ Hey Champ @ The Rave (Basement)
So the basement of the Rave was the only part of that venue I was yet to see a show in until this gig, and now I can say, without exception or hesitation, that the sound always sucks at The Rave, regardless of which venue you're in. I mean damn, guys, how hard is this? Anyway, Hey Champ was fine; they were sort of emosynthtastic and struck me as a third- or fourth-tier national act trying to level up. Nothing was wrong with their songs or their sound, but then nothing was also really particularly right. Sounded like they maybe have a ways to go.
As The Sounds came on I was thunderstruck by the small crowd. No way was there more than 200 people down there, and I might go as low as 150. Granted, it could just be Milwaukee. Unlike Chicago, we just don't have enough neo-new-wave hipsters in chunky-framed glasses, a scarf, a pastel cartigan, and cuffed jeans with low-top Pumas and no socks willing to come to a new-wave-revival show. Not saying that makes Milwaukee great or Chicago bad, necessarily, but that is kind of the typical American that might be into a band like The Sounds, and MKE ain't got many of 'em. Regardless, I was amazed at how few people had turned out to see what I thought was kind of a big-name act.
Which is too bad, 'cos they put on a great show. Nothing they do is amazing or revolutionary or whatever, but they do write fun new wave-ish pop songs and perform them superbly. Maja of course owned the stage but the band as a whole was really tight and never slipped for a second. The setlist was generously sprinkled with their hits, omitting only "Seven Days A Week," and even their new stuff came off well. A very fun show by one of my favorite guilty pleasure bands.
5/10: Gojira @ Logan Square Auditorium
(there were two openers that I missed)
Solid arrangements, airtight performance, great metal riffage. Seriously, if you like metal and you haven't seen Gojira live yet then you are really missing out. These guys are insanely tight and their drummer rocks the death-metal double-kick action like no one out there. He's not the complete drummer that Brann Dailor is, but his precision on the kicks is right up there with guys like Gene Hoglan. Everything is brutal and precise and brutally precise and not to be missed if the show comes to your town. Only bad thing about this gig was the venue, and once again there was a really small crowd, made smaller by the big empty auditorium we were all standing in. It's really pretty discouraging when bands of this stature are playing to half-empty halls. I dunno if that speaks ill of the bands' ability to draw, the promoters being lazy, the booking agents booking the wrong venue, peoples' unwillingness to go to shows, or what, but whatever it is, it's kind of depressing.