Where: Toledo, OH
Venue: Headliners'
Bands of Note:
Headliner: Lamb of God
Machine Head
Gojira
In all fairness, I was really only familiar with half of the bill's entire catalogue, that being Trivium and Lamb of God. Machine Head I have not really heard at all and Gojira I listened to that morning in school. However, obviously it takes more than a once-through to get a band's material stuck in your head. Everyone knows that going to see a band who's material you are unfamiliar with is undoubtedly going to be a not-as-fun experience, so forgive my opinion if it seems skewed.
The affairs start off
typical metal affair: that is, waiting outside in thirty-degree weather
in a t-shirt and jeans for about twenty minutes. I thought this type of
thing was only limited to the House of Blues and whenever Trivium played
at a local venue, as all of the rest of the Cleveland area venues have
never taken so long to let me in. I stand corrected.
In any case, due to arriving close to show time, by the time my group
and I had got inside, Gojira was unfortunately finishing up their
second-to-last song. This is going to sound hackneyed by now, but I
couldn't help but see a young Metallica in Gojira. The French quartet
was standing on stage, twin Gibson Vs, long hair, cut-off shirts,
headbanging and enthusiasm with musicianship to match. These
up-and-comers are evidently hungry and looking to prove themselves; it
shows. I only got to hear "The Heaviest Matter of the Universe", but
from what I observed, the sound quality was rather good and the band
certainly got the crowd into it.
Up next was Machine Head. I regret that I knew no songs of this band
from prior listen, and had only become acquainted with them via the
music my iPod playlist was shuffling through on my way up to Toledo.
The sound, as seems to be the trend these days, was rather poorly mixed
and sounded very muddy. In a band where the rhythm guitar is a primary
instrument, it becomes crucial that it is articulate in the mix.
Unfortunately for Machine Head, I could not really get into their set as
the sounds sounded like a mass of guitar rather than meticulous, chunk
riffs. Sorry guys, not your fault. I did, however, enjoy front man Robb
Flynn's short pro-Pantera monologue about the website article that
inspired a new song by the same title, called "Aesthetics of Hate".
Funny aside: during Machine Head's set, some random guy climbed a
support beam to raise the horns during the concert, jumped off, and
landed on some red neck's girlfriend, causing a fight to ensue.
Third is Trivium. I'm not going to lament on how their coming onstage routine was a ripped-off, albeit cheesier, version of Metallica's entrance, because it was just as cliché the first time. Just as I had predicted earlier that night, Heafy and co. led off with "Entrance of the Conlagration", probably one of the better songs off of The Crusade. I was a bit surprised to hear their sound quality sound not as good as it was at the small club where I last saw them. You'd think with their no-doubt growing budget they would have higher-end equipment. Again, muddiness and poor mixing. The rest of their set was uninspired at best. Trivium played a shorter set with less varied songs than the previous time I saw them, and with not as much enthusiasm, either. Maybe Heafy only gets into it when he's headlining? At least they didn't break a cymbal or lose a contact...
The saying "save the
best for last" truly seems to ring true here. Lamb of God is a band that
has been continually growing on me. I've gone from only liking one album
to liking and/or being familiar almost all of their material. Although I
saw them once on the Unholy Alliance tour (with equally, if not more,
terrible mixing), this time would wipe away any doubt I had of their
live performance reputation. I will say, even the headliner, despite
their fancy set-lighting, had a crappy sound. Luckily for me, I knew
about 80% of the songs that were being played, so I could sort of fill
in the missing fidelity in my mind's ear. Simply put, Lamb of God kicked
ass. Randy Blythe, while perhaps not the most charismatic front man, did
little talking and got the crowd into a frenzy on multiple occasions.
Almost every song had more than one circle put going on at any given
time. The riffs were heavy, the heads were banging, and LoG just put on
a no frills, balls out, metal show that was just about perfect except
for maybe going one or two songs too long. Before playing their last
number, Blythe said to the crowd (paraphrased for your convenience):
"This is gonna be our last song. We don't do encores; this isn't some
fucking Limp Bizkit concert!" Classic.
Rating: ●●●●●