Well folks, "The Metal for the Masses" tour hit the D.C. area last night and once again the Jaxx faithful came out in droves and sold out yet another show before the doors even opened.
The first band up was Scar Symmetry. I was pretty damn excited to see them for the first time because I play them a lot on my radio show. Unforunately, this is one of those bands that have incredible studio albums and just ain't that good live. Don't get me wrong, the music was solid, but when you looked at them you didn't feel like they were anything special. The band was a pretty average looking bunch of guys who really wouldn't stand out in a crowd. The stage was pretty full of equipment, so my hope is that that was the reason they really didn't move around much at all. The mix this band got didn't really help them either. The guitars (especially the solos) were completely lost in the mix and the vocals, both lead and backup, were way too hot. On the other end of the spectrum, I couldn't hear a single note the bass player played. The band's music reminded me a lot of Arch Enemy and the solos had tinges of Tony McAlpine influences. At times I felt hints of a newer Galactic Cowboys sound as well when it came to the "sung" vocals. I guess I would say they sounded "folkish". The solos were pretty cool when you could hear 'em. One thing that suprised me was that the band seemed to play the songs slower live than they do on the albums. Their huge singer tried like hell to get the crowd involved, but for the most part they weren't buying it. I score 'em as a 4 out of 10 as a live band. They just din't hook ya.
Next up was the Canadian band, Into Eternity. Wow. These fuckers were good. As a matter of fact, they were the best band of the night. The very confident and swaggering singer could do anything vocally. He could growl like Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt, screech like Cradle of Filth's Dani Filth, and put up one hell of a fight against Geoff Tate from Queensryche. I'm tellin' ya, this dude had range. The backing vocals were incredible too. The music reminded me a lot of Fates Warning with a thrash style. The lead guitarist was scary fast and his leads were complex, heavy, and interesting. The band as a whole matched up perfectly with eachother and they were tighter than most bands I have seen. When Into Eternity took the stage the crowd was kinda chill and there was lots of room on the floor. By the time they wrapped it up, the crowd was amped and the floor was getting pretty tight, so I would guess these guys earned a few hundered fans tonight. I score 'em 9 out of 10. Yeah. They were that good.
This tour is a co-headlining tour and tonight it was Dark Tranquility's turn to be the opening act. The crowd was most enthused about seeing this band. At the start, the floor was packed for this band but by the end, a lot of the crowd had milled away to make room for the faithful. I kind of felt like a lot of those people who went to sit down. The band was tight as hell, the singer was entertaining, but for whatever reason I just couldn't get into Dark Tranquility's music. It seemed, i dunno.... dated? Something weird that I noticed about this band was that they seemed to make people horny. I swear. Every couple that was there felt that they just had to make out like they were gonna drop to the floor and screw... It reminded me of stories that my parents told me about going to James Taylor concerts in the 70's. Anyway, the singer was a damn happy drunk, who liked to bobble atop the railings, barriers, and monitors. he was very full of movement and imitated the lyrics with his body. His vocal style was 100% growl, which seemed a little strange with such mellow music. The singer was responsible for the funniest event of the night in which he saw the tour camera girl hiding in front of the stage and he grabbed a beer and forced her to chug it. She got through about 2/3rds of the can and then spewed and dumped the rest of the beer straight onto her camera. I'm betting she is still cleaning every part of that thing. While a song here and there would briefly catch my attention, I spent most of my time watching the singer. I rate this band 7 out of 10. They were good at what they did, but... eh, I dunno... I can't feel a pulse.
The final act of the night was The Haunted. Ooooohhhhh yeah, I love these dudes. BTW- for all of you Dark Tranquility kiddies who left before The Haunted, ya'll are lame. Anyway, if you didn't know any better, you would think that the singer of this band was Phil Anselmo. The clothes, explosive movements, kneeling, crouching, launching, mohawk, mic grip.... EVERYTHING. The singer told the crowd that he was shocked at the turnout and had been confident that there would only be fifty people there. WAY TO PROVE HIM WRONG JAXX! The singer was a chattier bloke than I expected and I can't remember much of what he said through the night, but two things that stuck in my head were, "Protect your freedom of speech! Protect that shit! We don't have that in our country". I thought that was a pretty cool thing for him to say. It seems that we Americans sometimes think the rest of the world acts like us. The other cool thing he said/did was he dedicated one of the songs to all of the parents who brought their kids to the show.
The band was solid and I can't say that any musician really stood out much. On one side of the stage was the guitarist sporting a cool-ass, ESP Explorer with a killer grey camo paintjob, and on the other side of the stage was the bass player and lead guitarist who sure as shit looked like twins (and maybe they are, i dunno). I think the biggest drawback to this bands set was the audio. The vocals were lost in the muddy mix. I also found the overall sound to be very full of treble. The Haunted albums tend to be that way too, so maybe they were trying to emulate the studio feel. I know The Haunted songs have solos, but I can't say that I heard a single one of them. Another thing that bothered me was that their sound guy was "delay-effect happy". That singer was echoing endlessly all night.
The Haunted's music was pretty straight forward aggression. They didn't stop to screw around much and kept beating you down. One thing I was expecting to see was a pit. No band up until that point had gotten one going, but I thought The Haunted would. A pit started with a few guys about 2/3rds of the way through the set, but some big jerk (in a white shirt) bullied them into stopping. The next song, same thing. It was like trying to start an old lawnmower. You knew it was gonna go, but it was a matter of when. Finally with 2 songs left in the set, the pit wasn't going to be denied anymore. It finally let loose and no one was gonna stop it. That was till an "anti-pitter" decided to dump a beer on the moshers. BOOM! There is went. The friendly pit turned into the Jaxx Wrestling Federation. Needless to say, the bullshit only lasted 15 seconds before security swarmed the scene, but god damnit those pitters kept it goin till the end of the show. I love to watch a good pit, don't you? SCORE! 8 out of 10. The band was really good, but for technical reasons I couldn't score em higher.
In my next report I hope to give you the scoop on the 'Mushroomhead' show TONIGHT!. 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 new 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
