Live Coverage: Coheed and Cambria, Porcupine Tree, and The Dear Hunter at The Sunshine Theater

I've been dying to see Coheed since that other fuckface Tynan has got to see them a billion times, so when I heard Coheed was heading towards Albuquerque with Porcupine Tree AND The Dear Hunter, I was more down for this concert than a Bro getting offered to visit a basketball shorts factory.

The Dear Hunter began their set at 7:30, bringing their hardest and heaviest songs, trying to stay relevant to a crowd purely there for Coheed, and The Dear Hunter strutted their stuff, that's for sure. They sounded great, as they always have to me, the only problem was, they felt terribly tacked on to the band listing, they played for 25 minutes tops, and never really got the crowd on their side. The one thing I will give Coheed fans though is that they can sure be a bit more accepting of interesting vocalists after having Claudio rape their socially-inept-weird-kid ears for so long, so they definitely seem phased by Casey Crescenzo's high, screamy, creamy voice! Overall, they sounded great, didn't get to play long, and made my heart sink when I didn't get to hear Red Hands :,(

Porcupine tree took stage after a HALF HOUR SET UP. Good fucking lord, you would have thought they were unloading a Neil Peart drum kit or getting the giant mechanical Eddy out and ready, but they weren't. They just took a super long time. They did have a video slideshow that accompanied most of their songs, and before I get into how they sounded, let me say that the video asthetic altered between wannabe Tool music videos, the visualizations on windows media player, and a slide show of a high-school metalhead's "Cool/Random stuff" they saved off of google images. I think you are starting to see where I'm going. I was hardly a Porcupine Tree fan, only skimming through In Absentia, and I was hardly impressed by seeing them live. It felt like a lot of the songs were Tool songs. Call me ignorant, arrogant, or a fuckface, but that's what the sounded like to me. When they weren't sounding like Tool, they were kinda sounding like Dream Theater, it was slightly aggonizing considering that they played for an hour and a half. To be honest, they were one of my more least liked bands I've seen live. :,(

Finally fucking Coheed and Cambria started, and they begun with a bang, kicking shit off with "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3", I had been told it was awesome live, but holy fuck. The song was the perfect opener, with the sweet badass roll of waves playing behind Claudio on the projector screen. MY NIPPLES WERE ROCK HARD. That was definitely one of my more favorite concert moments, thanks Coheed. They really did sound awesome live, Claudio sounded great and played solos in the usual boner-inspiring fashion. They mixed classic Coheed songs with some cool new ones, one of my favorites off the new album, "Pearl Of The Stars" was a highlight with it's quieter, darker mood and more acoustic feel. I'd say about a third of their show was new songs, most of them sounding pretty good, with just a small amount of polish needed for them to sound perfect live. For the encore Claudio came out alone to play "Wake Up" alone with the crowd which was very nice. They ended with an old stand-by, "Welcome Home" which was a bit of a surprise, but in the end it was a lot of fun for the crowd, and ended the concert on a high note. Coheed is definitely worth sitting through an hour and a half of Pork-u-fuck Pee. :)

The Dear Hunter Set List (not perfect):
In Cauda Venemum
The Church and The Dime
Mustard Gas
He Said He Had A Story
The Procession

Coheed and Cambria Set List (almost perfect, and in perfect order):
In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Ten Speed (Of God's Blood & Burial)
Here We Are Juggernaut
The Crowning
The Suffering
Pearl Of The Stars
Everything Evil
When Skeletons Live
Guns of Summer
Delirium Trigger
No World For Tomorrow
Encore:
Wake Up
This Shattered Symphony
Welcome Home

Cool Tour 2010 Coverage

My journey to The Cool Tour 2010 started with a 2 hour drive to Columbus from Akron, by myself. Yes, I went to the show alone. Why? Because my friends aren't fucking metal. Sometimes being HxC can be a burden. Anyway, here are some short reviews/articles for the bands that played. Enjoy!



First up was War Of Ages. When they started playing I was a little surprised to see people in the crowd that were actually there to see them, since they were the first act. They were the only band I hadn't heard of on the bill, but seemed to have a bigger fan base than the next 2 bands. People started moshing right when they began playing, and these were hardcore moshers. One guy, who I presumed to be "The King of The Pit," even had a mouth guard. It's probably a good thing he put safety first. If he was injured then the pit would be king-less, and a pit without a king is like Rob Schneider without Adam Sandler, doomed (I'm really sorry I just made that joke).

Ok, the pit was funny (and lasted all 7 hours the show was going on, BROOTAL), but let's get to what matters, THE MUSIC. War of Ages sounded like....let's see, how should I put this....KILLSWITCH ENGAGE (and occasionally like Bullet For My Valentine). Their music was very unoriginal, but they did sound good. The crowd got really into it, which kind of sucked for the next 2 bands because they didn't get near the reaction. To sum up War of Ages' set it was good, but forgettable, very forgettable.


No more than 10 minutes after War of Ages finished Cancer Bats started (The setup up time between each band was only about 10 minutes for the first 5 bands, it was pretty nice). I had only heard a couple of Cancer Bats songs before and I kind of liked them, but my opinion on the band was pretty neutral. Right when they started a bunch of people ran from the back to the front so they could mosh. Right at that point I realized that Cancer Bats didn't really fit in. They are definitely heavy enough to mosh to, but their sound had too much punk and not enough metal for the mosh bros. Cancer Bats put on a pretty energetic show, but a lot of their songs sounded the same and, as I said before, the crowd couldn't get into it.

Instead of getting angry about the crowd or pretending like everything was all right, the band addressed the situation in a humorous way. They said something along the lines of "It's hard seeing a band you've never listened to before...I know some of you came to fist pump with your bros to Acacia Strain and you're like who are these Canadian assholes on stage?" It was pretty funny and a lot of the crowd openly agreed with the statement, which made it funnier. The bros next to me, who were already trashed at 5:00 and 2 bands in, kept giving the band the middle finger and yelling "fuck you!" and "get off the stage!" One of the times the bass player gave them the finger back and that only made them more angry. The more confusing thing about these bros is that they would "WOOOOOO" and clap the loudest after every song, and during Cancer Bats' last song, Hail Destroyer, they were even singing along. I am still confused about that.



The next band was Architects. I had heard pretty good things about this band so I was expecting them to be one of the better acts at the show. I will just tell you now, I was pretty disappointed. I did enjoy their set more than the first two bands, but it got boring fast. The band, at times, sounded quite a bit like Underoath, but a little more technical and a lot more boring. I had also heard them labeled as a progressive metalcore band, which is a pretty untrue statement. Aside from the occasional odd rhythm or delayed tapping line, the band was cookie cutter boring metalcore. I'm probably making them sound worse than they really were, but I that's just because I had higher expectations.



The next band was the god-awful The Acacia Strain. I sat down through most of their set and tried to take a small nap because I was completely uninterested with their music. The part of the crowd that could actually sit through their set got pretty into it, but many people used this time to go outside for a smoke, get a drink, or sit down and rest. Not only was their music awful, their vocalist was a huge dick. He constantly reiterated that he is "AN ANGRY PERSON." He even had the mindless audience watching them raise their middle fingers in the air and yell "FUCK THE WORLD!" If that's not metal then I don't know what is. The best part of their set is when the vocalist told everyone that he had just lost a close friend after a long battle with cancer.



Next on the line-up was Blessthefall, which was the only band I had seen live before (at Warped Tour '07 I believe). I don't really like them, but their set was alright. They sounded very solid, but it was hard to tell if the singer was on or not because of bad mixing. The crowd was again split, with some people really into it and others staring angrily. The only thing I really hated about their set was when they had an AWSUM synchronized guitar move flip thing (sorry I don't know my hxc move names) leading into a breakdown with synchronized crabcore-esque headbanging. At this point you have probably noticed that I haven't enjoyed any of the bands and you're probably starting to wonder why I even attended the show. Well I was wondering the same thing until BTBAM took stage.



After Blessthefall I finally moved up close to the stage to wait for Between The Buried And Me to begin. They began by playing an orchestral sounding version of Foamborn A over the speakers and then went straight into Foamborn B when they came onto the stage. I wasn't sure how many other people were there to see BTBAM, but when they began I was VERY pleased to see quite a lot of people into it. I had heard a lot of negativity about BTBAM's live shows and them not moving/being into it. The guitar players did stay still most of the show, but there was enough energy in the other 3 members for the audience to not get bored. Tommy (Vocals/Keys) moved quite a bit and put a lot of emotions into his vocals, Dan (Bass) moved a little bit and was very into his playing, and Blake (Drums) was just a fucking beast and was obviously into it the most.

If you've ever listened to BTBAM you know how ridiculously technical and complex some of the things they play are, and they pull everything off perfectly live. You could watch any one person on stage for the entire show and just be amazed the whole time. Everyone in the band is almost always doing something interesting or ridiculous on their instrument. The highlight of the show by far was their final song "White Walls." The crowd and the band were both going insane for the whole 14 minutes. My only complaint about BTBAM's set was that they didn't play anything off of The Silent Circus (Mordecai, Ad A Dglgmut) or Alaska (Selkies), but they only had time for 4 songs so it wasn't that big of a deal. Here was the setlist:

Foamborn Part A+B
Obfuscation
Disease, Injury, Madness
White Walls





Next up was Underoath. I was a little worried that they wouldn't be that great with their recent loss of Aaron Gillespie, but their new drummer was very good and Spencer and Tim did a fantastic job of covering the clean vocals. The crowd was really into it, except for a couple people who Spencer actually singled out towards the end of their set. He said something like this, "I like the guy in the middle that's mad at everyone with the Slipknot shirt on." The guy then yelled something at him, but Spencer laughed it off and told the guy he would buy him a beer if he found him after the show. It was pretty funny. They had a good setlist consisting of songs from Define The Great Line and Lost In The Sound Of Separation, also with one from They're Only Chasing Safety and one new song which I took video of! Check it out below:







Up last were the headliners As I Lay Dying. I've never been really into this band, but I do enjoy some of their songs. First thing I noticed when they started with 94 Hours was that they were REALLY FUCKING LOUD, but they sounded great. They started off with a few older songs, then began playing 3 or 4 from their new album The Powerless Rise. The thing that blew me away about AILD's set was how into it their fans were. I was standing next to a few kids that had to be 13 or 14. One of them was a black kid that was screaming all of the lyrics and just going insane. It was actually quite uplifting to see such young kids getting into such heavy music. I also saw one of the event staff people guarding the door directly right of the stage getting into it. He started headbanging and jumping around and it was quite entertaining. I don't know As I Lay Dying's music well enough to really comment on their setlist, but the crowd seemed to like everything they played and I enjoyed myself more than I expected to.





This show was pretty boring at first, but the last three bands really made up for all the mediocre opening acts. As far as Metal/Hardcore acts go, the lineup was very diverse and there was something there for everyone. I can definitely see there being a Cool Tour next year that's bigger and better.

Click Here to check out the rest of the pics I took!

Btw, sorry if I bashed a band you love. These are just my elitist opinions on all of the sets.

Event Review: Modest Mouse at The Paolo Soleri Ampitheatre

It's been more than a couple weeks since I got to see Modest Mouse live, and I must warn that some set list specifics might be off, or even a memory of the event could be askew, so forgive my frail old-man-mind. Oh and as another side note, I'm not a mega-fan of Modest Mouse, so I won't remember every obscure as fuck song "they played off that one EP from before "Float On" became popular and they sold out".

I'll start by explaining how excited I was for this show, I bought my ticket a few months in advance, and I was more than willing to spend 40 bucks to basically see only them, as the other band interested me none, and I was sure the same held for every other ticket holder. On top of that, I was willing to take the hour long trek from my home of Albuquerque to our capital Santa Fe to see these guys at a place I knew nothing about, the Paolo Soleri, an ampitheater which seemed to hold a special place for most that had been there. To top it all off, I heard that Modest Mouse wasn't the most amazing live act either, which gave me even more anxious wonder as to the outcome of the concert.

We got to the Paolo Soleri, and I gotta say, I was impressed, the ampitheater was really gorgeous, fitting our longstanding southwestern-adobe motif seen almost everywhere in New Mexico. There was also lots of space for listeners, rows of steps leading from the stage flowed upwards at a nice steep angle, with nice sets of improvised bleachers at the top to allow for even more listening room, which was quite welcomed by the end of the night.

The first band was as forgettable as this article, I think I vaugely gathered from other disinterested listeners that the name of the band was ("erm, I think...")Radar Brothers ("or something, sorry man, I dunno.") and boy, I gotta say, out of all my experience with live music, they were probably the most generic band I've heard yet. Middle-aged-family-friendly-indie rock'n'roll is the easiest way I can paint my view of this band, I told others later that they served more as music for everyone to get to their spot for Modest Mouse, more than anything. We all listened (barely) and clapped (barely) and I'm postive that the band heard the most praise when the lead singer asked; "Are you guys ready for Modest Mouse?"

And that we definitely were. This was definitely the biggest mesh of different groups of people I've ever seen before to support a band, Super old, super young, super hipster, and super normal, everyone was there, which was nice in some ways, because normal people know how to enjoy a band way more than indie hipsters that are too cool for cheering and dancing. I really can't remember what songs exactly they played, but I remember that Modest Mouse focused on the whole of their discography, excluding most of their oldest of old stuff. I was actually impressed, I was sure Isaac and company would stick to playing The Moon & Antarctica material mixed with some from the new EP: No One's First, And You're Next, but there was a minor focus on Good News.... and a tinsy bit from We Were Dead...Which was welcome in my book. Some of my favorite highlights from the set were "Fly Trapped in A Jar" which was played with the great introduction found on the album, and the new single "The Whale Song", which was skillfully played in it's full, mostly-vocal-less and jammy good-ness. "The Devils Workday" was another highlight, as it had a great section performed by a trio of horn players, and Isaac on the banjo.

As far as skill goes, Modest Mouse wasn't the most amazing performance I've ever seen/heard, but they were far away from bad. They played their songs skillfully and true to the studio, and that's where my only minor problem was, the live songs were so close to the album that I couldn't help but be unsatisfied with the amount of diss-similarities between live and studio, I wanted a bit of difference, maybe Isaac to change some of his vocals, or possibly be a bit more crazy live, and he simply wasn't, which isn't disappointing, just not amazingly entrancing. But overall they sounded great.

At the end of a good hour and half of a great set, Modest Mouse left for a break, and left us for a good ten minutes of chanting encore before coming out in skin tight suits and a man in a bunny outfit in toe. For their final songs I remember two of the three, one being the newish single "Satellite Skin" and their absolute finale being "Spitting Venom" which felt amazingly welcome, as it was a beast of a song, and had awesome horn parts, all played with fantastic conviction on all fronts. The encore was the best part of the show, as it should always be, and as "Spitting Venom" climaxed, it began to lightly rain, which was fitting, poetic, and lovely for how hot it was smashed shoulder to shoulder with every other fan.

We all stepped out of the venue with the smell of rain in the air, and a slight breeze flowing over the Santa Fe landscape, as I can't speak for everyone, I can definitely say I was filled with mild euphoria, as I know that I enjoyed a great band that should continue to impress with new and exciting music with a diverse fan-base that will always love them. So, if you actually read this half-remembered-hodge-podge of thought, I will thank you, and say that I can now tell you the most important part of this article, a recollection of the set-list (AS I REMEMBER IT):

• The World At Large
• Float On
• Bukowski
• The Devils Workday
• The View
• Satan in A Coffin
• 3rd Planet
• Tiny Cities Made of Ashes
• The Whale Song
• Doin The Cockroach
• Missed The Boat
• Fly Trapped In a Jar

Encore:

• Satellite Skin
• Spitting Venom

Good shit, sorry for any spelling or sentence errors, and lemme know if I fucked up the setlist at all. And now, my only photo I took at the thing, check it!