I saw both of these bands two days prior at Ozzfest. Nile wasn't that good in the festival atmosphere. Chthonic on the other hand was awesome. Though I wasn't at all happy with Nile at Ozzfest, I still wanted to give them a shot at Jaxx because it was their show and things would be as they wanted them, not as Ozzfest directed. Read on to see how awesome they were in a club!
Because of some county curfew for the 18 and under crowd, all the bands ended up playing a hell of a lot earlier than I would have expected. How I have been going to all ages shows at Jaxx for a year now, and I have never noticed this before is beyond me.... Needless to say, the band I was amped to see, Chthonic, was on their last song when I got the the club. Luckily for me they will be back as headliners on 8/13, so I will be able to give you a full review at that time. SO! On to Nile!
The first thing I noticed within 15 seconds of the start of their set was this was NOT going to be like their Ozzfest show at all. The sound was perfection. I thought that it was as clean in the mixes as they are on the CDs and people I talked to afterward agreed. The volume was perfect and you could make out every little weird pedal that the guitarist hit. Their sound guy should be given a raise. "Fuckin' Bravo Man!"
I gotta tell ya. I have listened to Nile for a while now and until I stood there and watched them, I had no idea how technical they are. They were blasting across their frets endlessly and it was so clean! The blonde and "skullet" guitarists traded lots of leads, but the main lead guy was the blonde dude. He was the guy who liked to tinker. He had tons of pedals all over the floor in front of him and behind them near the monitors he had a computer monitor that had all kinds of data on it. He also swapped guitars a lot with his roadie and busted out some of the weirdest guitars I have seen. One of the was a custom V thing that had very sharp points and a headstock that was a spear. Like a real spear. If his bandmates were to step into the headstock, they would literally be impaled. The coolest guitar he had was an 11 string, dropped octave, fretless, V that he uses a lot on the songs off the newest album. Now at this point I'm sure you are saying, "11 string?" Yeah. I was too. He verified to me afterwards that it only had 11, unfortunately I didn't think to ask him how it was configured.
For some reason, there is currently no official bass player in the band and they had a hired gun on the tour, but he fit in as if he was official. All three guys on the front line shared vocal duties. Something that was really cool was that you could hear a marked difference in each dude's voice. The skullet dude was the lead singer most of the time and he had the standard death metal growl. The bass player filled the roll of the screeching guy, and the blond guitarist had the low, low, grumble-growl that made me think of the monsters in the movie "The Mummy".
The crowd of around 300 kept their horns up in the air for the whole show. The moshing was very erratic. You would go a song or two with no pit, then you would get a fast frantic one for 45 seconds, then it would stop... There was really no rhyme or reason to how it flowed. The smaller crowd did make enough room for those guys in the pit who stand back as far as they can and run at each other full speed, colliding like mountain goats trying to get the girl.
If you like death metal, my experience at this show can simply be summed up like this. You must see this band. Period. They are as good as it gets. Now I'm not saying they were the most energetic guys to watch, but they just make you say, "Shit, I wish I could do that". Rating? 9 out of 10.
In my next report I hope to give you the scoop on the Obituary show on 9/11 ! Stay tuned.
Go to the BGR gallery (CLICK HERE) and check out my pics from last night's the show.
BE SURE to check out our friends at JAXX NIGHTCLUB! www.jaxxroxx.com
If you would like to attend a Jaxx show please let me know. I might be able to drag you along with me.
Comments Questions or Concerns? Hit me up! berube@braingell.com
And oh yeah...
Peace and Metal Grease!
berube
