Archive for the ‘concert review’ Category
Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax – Concert Review – San Antonio, Tx – September 25, 2010
I can practically remember the show like it was yesterday. Anthrax and Testament in 1987 at the Boathouse in Norfolk, VA. Anthrax was touring for Among the Living and testament for The Legacy. To this day it was one of the most incredible shows ever. I had gotten into Anthrax in early 1986 when I found a used copy of the cassette at Unicorn Records (RIP). I practically listened to that album every day driving to and from 
school. Minus Persistence of Time, I loved the Joey Belladonna era of Anthrax. When Bush came in, I was done. He was fine in Armored Saint but not in my beloved Anthrax. I was able to catch Anthrax with Joey on the State of Euphoria and Persistence of Time tours. They were always great live. I also caught them with Bush on the We Have Come For You All tour and it was a really good show.
When the American Carnage Tour was announced there was no doubt that I’d see the show. The first leg of the tour had Testament as the openers. That band never disappoints. This current leg featured Anthrax with the newly re-re-reunited Joey Belladonna on vocals. I was pretty excited about that since it had been since 1991 since I had seen him live.
I will say that even though I love…even adore Megadeth, I wasn’t too excited to see them this time since they are still playing Rust In Peace live. I had just seen it 6 months ago. But Megadeth always delivers. And they did once again last night. More on that in a bit.
So now the adventure of the day begins. I grab my best friend Amelia and her boyfriend Cody and we shuffle down to the other side of town to grab my other best friend, McMaster and head to San Antonio. Good conversation, good music playing and everyone is pretty excited about the concert.
We get to the show, check out the shirts which weren’t all that great so I got to save myself $40. Jason had a floor general admission ticket and we had seats. About 20 minutes before Anthrax hit stage we went to our respective sections and waited for the show to begin. Our seats were pretty decent and we had quick access to the lounge area of the AT&T Center.
The lights go down at 6:55 and Jim Florentine from That Metal Show and Crank Yankers fame is on stage as he is the Jagermeister MC for this tour. He does 5 minutes of comedy about metal and such and next thing you know Anthrax hits the stage.
They come on and open up with Caught In A Mosh. Good times. Anthrax has always been a very tight band as far as their playing and last night was no exception. A big part of that is because of Charlie Benante’s 
drumming. He’s a beast of a drummer. Anthrax only had a 45 minute set so they played the hits that you’d expect. They also added in Only from the Bush era and it was alright. It’s the only song from that era that I like. I have to say how surprised I was of Joey’s voice. He sounded great. He hit the high noted pretty well. Lucky for us it was only the second night of Anthrax being on the tour, so they were all still fresh. They sounded great and I got a little choked up when they played Madhouse. Spreading the Disease, is such an important album to me. I really felt like we flashbacked into the 80s for a brief minute. It was nice to just forget all of the worries of today and rock out like I was 17 again when the only thing I had to worry about was doing enough school work to get by and play drums. Simpler times for sure. But again, Anthrax was great and I actually wish they would have been the headliner to get a longer set and play some deeper cuts. being such a short set, I was only a slight bit disappointed that they played the 2 cover tunes, although they were big songs for them.
Anthrax’s setlist:
- Caught In a Mosh
- Got the Time
- Madhouse
- Antisocial
- Indians
- Only
- Metal Thrashing Mad
- I Am The Law
After Anthrax I head up to the lounge area behind our section to grab a coke and a hot dog. A boy’s gotta eat! Shortly after Florentine is on stage again and Megadeth hit the stage right after he walked off stage. They open up with Holy Wars and the crowd was all over it. People love the Rust In Piece album. Me? Not 
so much. But they sounded great, as always. Dave is one of the greatest metal guitarists ever in my opinion and he was great again last night. The addition of Chris Broderick has been nice as well. They did 5 other songs after playing Rust In Piece and sounded great except at the end of Peace Sells where Drover on drums couldn’t quite get his feet together. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a nerd and could overlook or not even notice such things, but I can’t.
Megadeth setlist:
- Holy Wars
- Hangar 18
- Take No Prisoners
- Five Magics
- Poison Was The Cure
- Lucretia
- Tornado of Souls
- Dawn Patrol
- Rust In Peace…Polaris
- Trust
- Headcrusher
- A Tout Le Monde
- Symphony of Destruction
- Peace Sells (encore)
- Holy Wars (reprise)(encore)
Now I’ll drop back a little in that during Megadeth’s second song, McMaster walks back to where our seats were and calls me down to the rail. We were only 4 rows up from the floor. He puts something in my hand and tells me to grab Amelia and Cody and meet him in the hallway right now. I didn’t really even look at what he gave me and grabbed the other 2 and we walked out immediately. Upon getting in the hallway I pull the wad of stuff out of my pocket and see that we were given Jagermeister VIP passes courtesy of Jim Florentine. Hot damn! We get escorted upstairs and ushered into a large VIP suite that had about 20 other people in it. It was straight back from the stage. It was stocked with beer, Jager (gross), Jager swag and food. We were told to make ourselves at home and Jason introduced us to his pal, Florentine.
While I’m not the greatest fan of That Metal Show, he’s the bright spot on the show. The dude is really a metalhead and absolutely hilarious. You get the feeling that he’s “one of us.” It was really pretty nice of him to give all 4 of us access. It was totally unexpected and a bit humbling. Certainly I don’t deserve that sort of treatment but will not complain about it. Thanks Jim!
So Megadeth finishes their set and Florentine goes down to the soundboard area and does another quick routine. Shortly after he’s back up in the booth with us hanging out.
Slayer hits the stage and opens up with World Painted Blood. For this tour Slayer was playing Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety. I didn’t care too much for that album when it came and that tour was the only other time I ever saw Slayer. It was also the last time that I was in a mosh pit. My nose is still a little crooked from
Slayer's opening screen
that show! I have a love/hate relationship with Slayer. I love everything up to and including South of Heaven and a few tracks from Seasons. Up until World Painted Blood, I just couldn’t get into any of it. I tried, believe me. I’ve bought every one of their albums and throughout the 90s and 2000s got rid of all of the post-Seasons albums. The new one was a little bit of a return to their late 80s glory. While it’s not great, I can stomach it.
With Slayer doing Seasons I wasn’t too excited about it, but hearing it live again had me pumped up a little bit. I hadn’t listened to that album in 10 years or more and it felt weird knowing every word of an album that I had been slagging for 20 years. After last night, I will call myself a fan of that album now…minus the title track. Still can’t get into it. As for Slayer’s performance, they sounded awesome. Tom’s voice was sharp. He doesn’t headbang anymore because of problems with his back and neck. No biggie. Kerry and Jeff were solid. Slayer has a unique sound and a unique riffing style. Some time during their set, Jason and I looked at each other and both basically said the same thing…”They invented that.” Lombardo was awesome. He’s such a beast of a drummer. I was fortunate enough to see and meet him when he toured with Testament on The Gathering tour. It was cool hearing them to South of Heaven and 
Aggressive Perfector. Slayer kicked everyone’s ass in the building last night. I’m sure that’s a pretty consistent thing. My only criticism of their show is that they got a little off in the intro to Seasons but they figured it out pretty quickly. Slayer!
Slayer setlist:
- World Painted Blood
- Hate Worldwide
- War Ensemble
- Blood Red
- Spirit In Black
- Expendable Youth
- Dead Skin Mask
- Hallowed Point
- Skeletons of Society
- Temptation
- Born of Fire
- Seasons In The Abyss
- South of Heaven
- Raining Blood
- Aggressive Perfector
- Angel of Death
As I saw during the Iron Maiden show a few months back, they have a person on the floor behind the soundboard doing sign language to each band’s lyrics for the hearing impaired folks in the crowd. Florentine 
was sitting next to me during Dead Skin Mask and I point the sign language lady out to him and say, “Dude, you gotta work this into your act. Someone doing sign language to Slayer lyrics!” If any of you faithful readers see him do this line in an upcoming act, you know where it came from! haha
As always, it was a great night with great friends…the ones who came with me and the ones I ran into at the show. Thanks again to Jim Florentine for his awesome act of kindness.
Let’s hope for a full blown Anthrax tour!
Florentine and McMaster
Asia – Concert Review – Austin, TX – August 21, 2010
1982. I was in 6th grade at Southwestern Intermediate School in the middle of nowhere Virginia. Heat of the Moment was the number one song dominating the charts. Asia was huge already and everyone knew them. 
We were in some class and someone had a boom box with this song playing and one of my classmates, Kevin F., was playing along to the song on his desk. Kevin was a drummer. For as much as I was into music, I never really thought about playing an instrument until that day in class when I asked Kevin t show me what he was doing. Just as simple as that, he showed me what Carl Palmer was doing on the drums. I wanted to be a drummer. Right then. Boom. It took 2 more years before my parents actually bought me a drum set, but I finally got there. And thanks to Kevin taking 10 minutes to show me “how” to play something, a new chapter…a very important chapter of my life had begun.
For all of the following school years after that, I constantly heard, “Sean, stop banging on your desk!” “Sean, stop tapping your feet!” “Sean, stop tapping those pencils!” and so on. The drums became a way of life for me between 1984 and 2000 when I was forced to give them up due to permanent hand injuries due to drumming. I loved playing the drums and still miss it every day. Fortunately I was able to pick up the bass in 2000 and able to continue on as a musician (yes, drummers are musicians too!).
So basically it was because of Asia and Kevin that I ended up playing drums. Sure, something else probably would have happened to get me there, but that was, as I remember it, the catalyst. So…blame them!
It’s also a big reason why the debut Asia album sits so very near and dear to my tiny black heart. It’s one of those albums that I can never grow tired of, no matter how many times I hear it. Their follow-up album, Alpha, wasn’t too bad either, but the debut is the one.
Being that I was also a YES fan, thanks to my older brother, it gave me an interest in Asia. Steve Howe is a great guitarist.
When I found out a month or so ago that Asia was coming here on their Omega Tour with the original lineup, there was almost no way that I could or would miss this show. I bought tix the instant they went on sale and ended up 7th row on the left side. My friend John ended up scoring front row on the same side the day before the show. Curses! Haha. But whatever. I was there and that’s all that mattered. The guy I play bass for, Doug Morrison, also wanted to go so I ended up getting 2 tix.
The show was at the Paramount Theater here in Austin and I had only seen one other show there, Return to Forever, which was quite awesome in its own right. We get to the venue around 7ish and the band was slated to start at 7:45PM. We were both a little tired from playing a gig of our own the night before. I was checking out the merch and ended up buying the shirt for their current tour as it had the tour dates on the back. One thing I noticed after I bought it was that the band’s name was nowhere on the shirt. Odd. No biggie, I know what it is and that is all that matters.
So finally the lights go down and they open up with I Believe from the Omega album. Everyone stands up to applaud them coming on stage and then we all sat for pretty much the remainder of the show. Kind of odd sitting at a rock show, but oh well. The Paramount is an old theater and the seats aren’t very comfortable, but we suffered through it.
Asia plays songs from the debut, Astra, Phoenix and Omega. The overall sound mix wasn’t that great in my opinion. It may have been because we were 7 rows back from the mains on that one side, not sure. The drum mix got better though the night but his snare was still pretty quiet. Wetton’s bass was almost silent. I even put in earplugs to see if it would help but it didn’t.
The band looked good. I mean these guys are all in their 60s now, so you don’t expect too much. Steve Howe looked like he was about 104 years old, almost like a combination of The Cryptkeeper and Dr Jim from Taxi combined. His playing was great. Nice to see those old fingers still doing those fast runs. He was solid as a rock. He wasn’t very animated but then again he never was. He was playing a double cutaway Gibson semi-hollowbody through 2 Line 6 amps. It was cool that the band took a break and he sat down and did an acoustic solo which included Ram, a great little acoustic number of his.
John Wetton was playing an old black Gibson Victory bass through a 1×15 Ampeg combo amp. Like I said before, I never really heard much of what he was doing but saw some flashes of his talent in the runs that he was playing in a few tracks. I liked that he rarely looked at the bass, he knew what to do and where. He was, however, using a teleprompter and relied on it quite often. I’m not the biggest fan of those things in general, but hey, I guess he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. His voice was stellar. I don’t think they tuned down at all and he was hitting almost every high note with relative ease for a 60-something year old dude.
Geoff Downes really looks the same as he always has, just a little chubbier (I feel his pain!). He had the usual 3 stacks of keyboards surrounding him and his playing was fine. He also handled all of the backing vocals. Some were synthed but most were raw and he sounded great. He’s a fine keyboardist.
Finally…Carl Palmer. In general I’ve never really paid attention to him as a drummer other than what he did on the first album to inspire. It surely wasn’t because of his “badassedness”. My opinion of his playing changed a bit last night. Even as a drummer, I usually didn’t care much for drum solos. I never did them in bands I was in and most of the time would get bored seeing them by other bands. There were always a few exceptions. Carl Palmer became one of those exceptions. His solo was tasteful and entertaining. He did a lot of jazz stuff, which is what I prefer to see in drum solos. Super fast quads and triplets and blistering double bass is just so cliché. Carl played traditional grip on his left hand the whole night and during his solo he threw in some cool Buddy Rich licks, both aurally and visually. It was pretty cool. The dude has some chops. I just wish the drums were mixed a bit better. But…nice work, Carl. By the way, Carl looks like Richard Mulligan from the TV show “Soap”. Pretty funny.
One thing I noticed was the interaction (or lack thereof) of the band members. I’d see Wetton and Downes make eye contact a few times and I’d see Palmer and Downes smile at each other a bit. But there was no eye contact between Howe and Wetton, not even once. I sensed a little animosity. It may also be because Howe seems like he is blind nowadays. He was wearing some thick glasses.
We found out before the show that there was a no camera policy for this night. No biggie. People were still snapping shots with their camera phones (me included). By the last 2 songs, everyone seemed to be taking pictures and Howe seemed pretty annoyed by it. He made some funny faces to a few folks who got up and walked to the stage to take pictures and actually took one guy’s camera and acted like he was taking pics of the crowd. People were laughing but I don’t think Steve was doing it to be funny at all. I was also surprised that the show didn’t sell out. The venue isn’t that big and there were several empty seats.
Overall the show was better than I had expected. The band took a 15 minute break mid-set and the whole show was over at 9:45PM. I was very glad that I went and it was worth the ticket price for sure. So…Thanks Kevin. Thanks Asia.
Here’s the setlist:
- I Believe
- Only Time Will Tell
- Holy War
- Never Again
- Through My Veins
- Don’t Cry
- Steve Howe Guitar Solo
- The Smile Has Left Your Eyes
- Open Your Eyes
- Go
- Time Again
- An Extraordinary Life
- End Of The World
- The Heat Goes On
- Carl Palmer Drum Solo
- Sole Survivor
- Days Like These (encore)
- Heat of the Moment (encore)
Asia 2010 @ The Paramount Theater, Austin, TX
Concert Review – Hirax – Austin, TX – 08/29/09
It was 1986 and Metal Blade Records was practically the greatest metal label on the scene. They consistently released 
great compilations like the Metal Massacre and Best of Metal Blade series. Best of Metal Blade Volume 1 (1986) included Call Of The Gods by Hirax. I always loved that song but for no logical reason whatsoever did I never check them out any further. I also liked Bombs of Death from Metal Massacre 6. There’s really no explanation as to why I didn’t follow through on these guys, and after last night I feel like I missed out on some additional great metal in the last 23 years.
So about a month or so ago I read in the local show listings that Hirax was coming to Red 7. Even though I was not even remotely familiar with any of their material beyond the 2 aforementioned songs, I definitely wanted to see this show. Through the years I’ve always seen Hirax playing the Euro festivals and have read interviews with Katon W. DePena and have always respected his attitude about music. The guys has proudly been flying the flag of metal since day 1.
So I get to the club a little early to get MM6 and Best of Metal Blade 1 signed as well as my copy of “Headbangers: Worldwide Megabook of Heavy Metal” (Mark Hale, 1993). I know the club owner pretty well and he let me go in to the green room to meet Katon and the band. I was looking forward to this for a few reasons. One to meet Katon, who really is a true metal legend. The other reason was to meet Glenn Rogers, former guitar player of Deliverance. I dug those guys back in the day. When I went into the room, Katon was in there with his lovely wife, his bassist and guitarist Lance and Steve Harrison and some other guy that I didn’t know. Glenn was out and about with a friend so I would catch up with him later.
Katon invited me over and we talked for a bit just about music and such and Katon asked about my book. As he’s flipping through it reading about his band and tons of other obscure bands that are listed in the book. He signed it and my 2 CD covers and said, “Is DRI in here? The guy beside me if Felix from DRI.” Felix thought they wouldn’t be in there but I knew they were. Much to everyone’s pleasure, there was even a picture of band during the era that Felix was in it (85-90). I hung out for a bit and asked Katon if he ever had any interactions with Billy Milano, which he had. So I asked if he wanted to walk over to the club that Billy works in to say hello. We popped over there for a bit and they shook hands and caught up for a few minutes then I took them over to another club so Katon could catch up with an old friend who unfortunately wasn’t there at the time. Back to Red 7. It was great seeing the respect this guy was getting from people in the club, some of who came from Houston and I think a few from Mexico to see this show.
I really expected a much larger crowd, especially with this being on a Saturday. Typically the San Antonio crew would come up for a show like this but I only saw a few folks from that crowd there. The Sword was playing up the street for the 2nd night in a row and I can’t imagine they stole much of the crowd from this show. The club booked 4 grindcore bands to open up which I thought was a bad pairing. I didn’t go in to check out the other bands as I’m not really a fan of the grind stuff in general. While the grind bands were playing I got to talk to Glenn Rogers who let me know that Deliverance was going to do one more album with the original lineup sans the drummer.
But then it was time for Hirax. It was already around 1 or 1:10 AM but the crowd had increased. I’m guessing there were about 90 people in there. Cover charge was $15. Well worth it for me. Hirax kicked in and just kicked ass. Katon is a great frontman, reminds me a lot of Jason McMaster. Knows to to work a crowd and keep them interested during guitar tunings and such.
I have to say that I was truly blown away and really felt a bit guilty about not having checked them out deeper. But there’s no time like the present, right? Their set was cut short due to time restraints and I must say I was a little let down that Call of the Gods wasn’t on the set at all. But it didn’t matter, they were great and I hope they make their way back to Austin again.
Setlist as I remember it:
- El Dia De Los Muertos
- 100,000 Strong
- Blind Faith
- New Age of Terror
- Chaos and Brutality
- Hate, Fear and Power
- Broken Neck
- Bombs of Death
- El Diablo Negro
- Walk With Death
- Mouth Sewn Shut?
I am not so sure about the ones after El Diablo Negro.
Katon W. De Pena (Hirax), fat dude (me), Felix Griffin (DRI)
Rolling Stones Review – Bomb Scare Show – 10/06/05
As you may know if you’ve either known me for a while or read back through some of my ramblings, I am a huge Stones fan. My #2 band of all time actually, only to be beaten out by Iron Maiden. I finally got an oppurtunity to see them in 2005 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, VA. I originally bought 5 tickets, 3 nosebleeds and 2 good ones. I planned to use the good seats for myself and whoever I decided to bring along with me and resell the other 3 for a profit. Yep. Capitalist pig I am! But…I ended up selling the 2 good seats to my friend Jeanne as she wanted to take her mom to the show. No profit to be made.
Right about a year or so before I got the tickets, I started to frequent the Taphouse in the Ghent section of Norfolk, VA. I had been there before with friends but never really “hung out” much there. I liked the place and started going there mroe often for shows and such. I lived about 25 minutes away so I didn’t do much of my partying there because of the drive. As I was sitting at the bar one afternoon, I was talking to one of the owners, Al, about how I had some spare tix for the Stones show if he knew anyone that wanted them. He said he’d buy them and take his guitarist along. Done deal. We ended up going to the show together with his brother as his guitarist bailed at the last minute.
I didn’t really know these guys that well but what the hell. I knew a lot of people who knew them and they were good to me as a patron in my early days there. These 2 guys play in a band called Rylo. Rylo is a boogie/honkytonk/jazzy/upbeat type band. Hard to classify really but they do what they do very well. Of course in my car I only brought metal stuff to listen to. Maiden, Dokken, Mercyful Fate, KISS, etc. Ended up that these 2 dudes were metalheads. It was the beginning of a wonderful relationship.
We drove to the show, a 3 hour trip, and had a blast. We met Jeanne and her mom in town for some Italian food then parked and walked to the stadium for the show. We parked in some dude’s yard for $20 and walked about a mile. No biggie, the weather was perfect.
We definitely had nosebleed seats. Trey Anastasio of Phish opened up. B O R I N G. I was amazed at how many people left after Trey played. Whatever. The Stones were the Stones. Sloppy. Energetic. Funny. To be honest, I shed a tear when they hit the stage. Lifelong dream for me to see them.
Halfway through the set, Mick stops and does introductions then says they need to take a break per the “authorities”. We figured someone called and complained or something. Turned out to be a bomb threat. They cleared the floor for the first 40-50 rows and brought in bomb sniffing dogs. No bomb. Of course. The big treat for me was that they played Sweet Virginia. They NEVER play that song.
They came out and finished their set. From what I understand we only lost 2 songs…Infamy and The Worst. No big deal.
We decided to drive back to Norfolk that night. It was slow getting out of there but we had a blast. Mountain Dews, beef jerky and Doritos all around for the ride home. It was a blast, almost as fun as the show.
Soonafter that I moved to Ghent and the Taphouse became my place. I ended up working there as a doorman as needed and loved every moment of it. I made some friendships there that will last forever. I miss that place a lot and when I go to visit Virginia, it’s usually the first place I stop in.
Setlist:
- Start Me Up
- It’s Only Rock’n Roll
- Shattered
- Tumbling Dice
- Rough Justice
- Ruby Tuesday
- Sweet Virginia !!!! with additional sing-along after the song had ended
- All Down the Line !!
- Night Time is the Right Time
— band intros, thru Ronnie.
Time: 9:43pm
“We have to take a 10 minute break, according to the authorities”. Band leaves the Stadium, they bring in bomb sniffing dogs, clear out the stage people entirely, and vacate everyone in the first third of the field and the seats at the ends of Mick’s catwalks.
Time: 10:38pm - Miss You (to second stage)
- Oh No, Not You Again
- Get Off My Cloud
- Honky Tonk Women (from second stage)
- Sympathy For The devil
- Midnight Rambler!
- Paint It Black
- Brown Sugar
- Jumping Jack Flash
- You Can’t Always Get What You Want (encore)
- Satisfaction (encore)
Pentagram Concert Review – Emo’s, Austin, TX – 070609
Pentagram, Outlaw Order, Nachtmystium, Wolves in the Throne Room, Minsk, The Roller – Emo’s, Austin, TX 070609
I’m pretty sure it was Daniel who turned me on to Pentagram In 1987 when he bought Day of Reckoning on cassette. It had a cool cover of a mausoleum. I had seen it advertised in the ‘zines but never bothered with it. As stated a zillion times before, my parents weren’t so keen on the whole metal thing and this one would have surely gotten mom’s attention just by the name of the band. I had Daniel dub it for me and I just had it titled “Day of Reckoning” on the cassette with no song titles or anything else. Hey, we had to play it safe. I simply adore this album. Very Sabbathy without some of the heaviness of Iommi’s tone. Although Victor Griffin really lifted a lot from Iommi, he took that style to another level. They only other comparable band from that era that was pulling this off was Trouble.
I wanted to see Pentagram live and tried a few times in the mid-to-late 90’s but it seemed that every time I wanted to go up to the Baltimore/DC area to see them, they cancelled. Typically because of Liebling’s drug and alcohol abuse coupled with his frail mental and physical states. Sad but I have no sympathy.
In 2000 I went to Jaxx in Springfield, VA to see Raven/UDO. Joe Hasselvander was drumming for Raven and we talked Pentagram for a while. He told me some trippy stories about playing with Bobby.
Flash forward to about 2 months ago. I heard Pentagram was doing a handful of shows in the US and that the final one was in Austin. Seriously? Pentagram? Here? I got my ticket the day they went on sale as I expected it to sell out. My friend Jasmine had seen them a few months prior in NYC and she said they were great so I was really excited to finally see them. In recent years they have used the drummer from Spirit Caravan, Gary Isom and a good guitar player named Russ Strahan. Not sure who he and the player may have played with before but they sounded fine.
So for the last 6 weeks or so I have been super excited. I finally (hopefully) get to see a band I have wanted to see for 22 years!
I head downtown around 730 or so and go to the Jackalope for a burger (the best!) and a few beers. Gary from Mala Suerte and Noah stop in and hang out for a bit. After we finish, we head over to Emo’s for the show. I go in and check out the Pentagram merch booth. Talking to the girl who works it, Nancy, we had a few friends in common from the east coast. I end up buying both styles of the Pentagram shirts as they don’t sell the XXL versions on the website. Yea! Just what I needed, more black t-shirts!
Local doom/sludge band The Roller opens the show on the outside stage. I’ve seen them several times and they do their thing well. Halfway through their set I go inside to get a beer and some A/C and check out Minsk from Chicago. Not really my thing but I guess they are alright. I liked that sound better when Tiamat was doing it 15 years ago. Haha. Just kidding guys…sorta. Now let’s take into account that I have been up since 530AM and it’s around 10PM. I’m a little tired. So I go outside and sit for a while and see some friends, shoot the shit, check out some nice asses…you know, the usual. Outlaw Order (EYEHATEGOD) were setting up and I found a place in the back of the venue and sat down for their set. It wasn’t too bad, a little better than their EYEHATEGOD stuff. I was comfortable on the bench and didn’t go back in to check out Wolves In The Throne Room. Noah said they were good and he bought the 12” of their latest. Shortly after Wolves finished inside, Nachtmystium took the stage outside. Death metal, upbeat, double bass, fist pounding type stuff. Not bad, nothing groundbreaking.
Then Pentagram sets up. Pretty decent crowd. I estimated about 400 or so but definitely not a sellout. I expected more. So Pentagram hits the stage. Bobby looks old. Well, Bobby is old. His voice sounded like shit in the first song. Absolutely awful. I wonder how it was for the other shows? It got a little better towards the middle of the set but he was obviously hurting. I understand it. Singers can’t always be 100% and with Bobby Liebling I imagine you never know what you’ll get. He looked really frail but was very mobile. He seemed to get all the words right. When he spoke between songs, though, he sounded like Keith Richards. Couldn’t understand much of what he was saying except when he said “I fucking love you guys!” He said that about 10 times. Right on, Bobby. The band was tight and Russ’ guitar playing was good. Nice tone, good licks…a fitting guitarist for Pentagram.
But I do have to say I was a little disappointed overall. I guess maybe because of the setlist. Having never seen them live, I don’t know what they would usually play, but I expected more stuff from Day of Reckoning. As previously stated, I love that album. At minimum I wanted to hear Burning Savior. The only thing we got from that one was When The Screams Come. Great song, sure, but it’s no Burning Savior. They played 3 from Relentless: All Your Sins, Sign of the Wolf (Pentagram) and 20 Buck Spin. I never cared for 20 Buck Spin but love the other 2 tracks. They also played Petrified from Be Forewarned. There were a few new songs from an upcoming album called Last Rites but I can’t say they were very memorable. There were a few others in the set that I didn’t recognize as well. But where was “Living In a Ram’s Head”? I think in total we only got about 10 or 11 songs. It seemed as if they wanted to play more during their encore but he stated “They said this has to be our last song of the night.” The crowd near the front seemed pretty into it. A lot of people singing along and such. When I didn’t like was seeing all of the beer cans being thrown around. I’ve been hit while playing and it sucks. Also, WTF was with the crowd surfing? Stupid kids.
The merch girl told me that Bobby usually comes out to sign stuff after the show and as always, I came armed and ready with CD covers…but at the end of the show, I just wanted to go home. I was tired, hot, sweaty, disappointed and deflated. One guy I know said “You should be happy that you got to see a legend. What did you expect?” I guess I expected a better setlist, but that is my fault, not Pentagram’s. The sound in there was pretty shitty too which didn’t help much. Bobby complained several times at the beginning of the set to turn his monitors up. Like I said, his vocals got a little better as the show progressed but he just sounded beat and tired. Decades of self-abuse with drugs etc have taken their toll. In a way I sort of wish I would have stuck around to see if Bobby was signing stuff as I’ll likely not get that chance again. Oh well.
I was going to write this review last night when I got home but my emotions were still high. I think I gave a better and more level-headed review by waiting. I am glad I got to see them even if my expectations weren’t met.
I have attached a setlist from one of the Chicago shows. I assume this is what we got last night with the encore songs being reversed.
Enjoy the vids too!
The Metal Files 
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