“Lions for Lambs” 2008 Tour Converge, The Red Chord, and Genghis Tron
dates w/ Baroness
dates w/ Coliseum Read More
|
There was a time when W♥M covered metal, mostly thanks to a kid named Soup, out of Idaho. He covered the Converge tour in 2008. This is a metacore band from Massachusetts, formed in 1990… so they’ve been around for a long time.
At that time, they were signed to Epitaph Records with their last album No Heroes in 2006, and with a pending Axe to Fall to come out in 2009.
Typical of these metal shows, there are a lot of bands on the bill, almost like a traveling music festival. This also meant that each band probably had about 30-min sets, with the headliner getting 45 or 1 hour. The other bands on this particular show was The Red Chord, Genghis, Baroness, and Blacklisted.
Original report from Soup:>>>
Epitaph was recently cool enough to stick me on their guest list to see one of my favorite live bands at the smallest all-ages venue in town. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked. Tonight, I was going to have my face melted by Converge, The Red Chord, Baroness, Genghis Tron, and Blacklisted.
Unfortunately, I showed up a half hour late, forgetting that this venue starts shows an hour earlier during the school year. So when I got there, Blacklisted was halfway through their set. The couple songs I caught were pretty much straight-up hardcore with a definite “Deathwish” edge to it. A fine opening to the night.
Genghis Tron hauled out their keyboards after that, along with a custom light setup. Their sound is sort of like what would happen if you mixed the typical Casio-core sound with a little bit of well-integrated trip-hop. There's no live drummer, but they have enough energy going between the three of them to easily make up for it. The house was already packed at this point, so I couldn't get any pictures, unfortunately.
I did, however, manage to make it up toward the front for Baroness, who managed to cement their place as one of my new favorite bands. They have a definite old-school vibe going on, with a lot of that classic British guitar crunch, and vaguely Maiden-esque riffage and the most melodic vocals of the night. But they do this all without sounding like any sort of throwback, and without coming off “too prog.” And, well, they completely slayed. This is one of those bands who, unless they break up or somehow put out a string of really terrible albums, is going to be huge, soon.
After them was The Red Chord. Quick confession: I have never liked The Red Chord. For some reason, they just never did much for me. Maybe it's because there are breakdowns where the guitar solos are supposed to be, and their songs are all itching for some crazy atonal death metal style guitar solos. But regardless, they put on an awesome live show that their recordings could never do justice. They have a lot of the kind of energy that can only really be communicated live. And damn, they communicate it well!
The main event, was Converge, however. Converge is the hardest band on Earth to photograph. Especially when the batteries in your camera are dying. Kurt came out before the rest of the band and played the opening riff of “Plagues” from the band's most recent album, No Heroes (I somehow managed to get a picture of this happening despite being smashed between about eight dudes who were all about twice my size at the time). The band came out and proceeded to melt face with an assortment of newer songs (“Plagues,” “No Heroes”), classics and fan favorites (“Concubine” and “Last Light” - which may be the most memorable singalong in heavy music - respectively), and some more obscure tracks (including “Locust Reign” from the Agoraphobic Nosebleed split LP). The band was in top form, and the crowd responded accordingly, many of them blatantly violating the venue's “no stage diving” rule and some of the gutsier ones even taking dives off the PA.
This tour is still going, and I'd definitely recommend checking it out. Baroness is going to be on the tour until the April 20th show, after which Coliseum (also an excellent band) will be taking their place.
Converge at The Venue (15 April 2008) |
|
vu ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com |
Recent Comments