King Giant puts on a great show however there’s a kick ass line up for the whole night so be sure to get there early and check out some of the other bands playing. Starting the night off will be a band called Weed Warlock and I honestly don’t know much about them but I’m going to guess they’re a stoner band just from the band name alone. After them will be Auroboros, one of the area’s rising sludge bands. You sort of have to mention that the band features former members of both Baroness and Salome, however they’re a great band even if they didn’t have a pedigree. I’ve also heard they have just made t-shirts and this will be the first place you’ll be able to get one at. After they play there’s The Crimson Electric who are coming up from the Virginia Beach area. You may recall that they played with King Giant at the State Theatre back in January of 2011. So I guess this is becoming an annual thing for them but that’s not a bad thing at all because they put on a great show. The final opening act before King Giant plays will be Borracho, a stoner/doom band from DC. Their name is Spanish for a drunk or lush and as you’d guess they write some great riffs to knock a few back to between rounds of shots. This is really an excellent line up of similar yet distinct and talented bands. If you don’t end up winning you can get a ticket online from Amped & Alive for $13.50 here OR you can buy a ticket at the door $12 (add $2 to that if you’re under 21). This show is all ages and the doors open at 6:30pm. I’ll also be selling DCHM shirts and hopefully have a new batch of DCHM stickers in by then and I’ll be giving those away for free to anyone who wants one. Now check out this kick ass King Giant video for their new song Appomattox and enter the contest below it:

On Saturday the 12th of November 2011 I headed out to the Velvet Lounge on U Street in the District. Warchild was headlining a show and I had heard they were good live, though I hadn’t gotten a chance to see them yet. I got there right when their set was starting and the upstairs of the Velvet Lounge was absolutely packed! I’ve never seen it that full before and it’s cool so many people came out to see a local metal band play there. Warchild is a thrash metal act who likes to party hard. Everyone in the band was shirtless and sporting lots of tattoos. The vocalist, also from the 80s throwback rock band Rattler, told everyone in attendance to not hold back and stage dive and crowd surf as much as they wanted. The audience complied and people were even hanging from the fan in the middle of the room, just going nuts. They brought some people on stage to pound beers in a beer bong and even had two guys race to see who could smash the a can of beer open on their head and then drink it the fastest. And you thought Municipal Waste was a party thrash band, this show was crazy. They played a solid thrash set and ended it with a kick ass cover, with plenty of crowd participation, of Metallica‘s old school classic The Four Horsemen. Such a great show, I can’t wait to see them live again. Highly recommended!

The following Thursday, the 18th of November, I went to the Black Cat in Washington DC to see Fu Manchu play. The opening act was the Austin, Texas based three piece Honky. Somewhere between hellbilly and stoner, they were a pretty solid opener. Their bass player is JD Pinkus who is better known for having played in the Butthole Surfers. They had some hilarious song titles and subjects, which you’d expect more from a humorous grind band. My favorite was their song about masturbating at work called Gittin’ It. They were fun and obviously didn’t take themselves too seriously and they made for a good opener for Fu Manchu. On the final song of Honky’s set Fu Manchu guitar player Bob Balch came out to play a tune with the band. Fu Manchu is one of the main influences in stoner rock and metal, and most of their songs deal with modes of transportation like souped up cars and skateboarding. They had played the upstairs main stage at the Black Cat in September of 2010 but this concert was in the smaller back stage downstairs. The place was pretty crowded when Fu Manchu hit the stage, but the crowd wasn’t too rowdy. They started the set off with a few of their 90s classics before launching into this tour’s main draw, performing their entire 1996 album In Search Of… straight through. They walked off stage for the encore thing and came back to play a couple more songs, finally ending the set with King Of The Road which was still stuck in my head as I drove home. King of the road says you move too slow!

On Tuesday the 29th of November I found myself at the Cellar Door in Annandale, Virginia to see the Chapel Hill, North Carolina based band Black Skies play. There were four bands playing that night but I only caught two of them. The first band that I saw was Admiral Browning, a Frederick, Maryland band that was formerly an instrumental band with four members. To my surprise, at this show they had vocals and only three members. A bit of a change, and although I have a fondness for instrumental metal bands, the vocals fit in to place with the rest of the music. They were entertaining but the main reason I came to this show was to see Black Skies again. I saw them play back in September and they blew me away. This show was no less exciting. Even in the tight basement of the Cellar Door they just burst with energy. They’re the only band I’ve seen someone play a guitar solo with their teeth in a basement, and I’ve seen them do it twice now! I ended up buying a poster and it came with a free download of their debut album, On The Wings Of Time. This is a band worth checking out and I can’t wait to see them play in the area again.

Skip ahead to Sunday the 11th of December and I was at Jaxx to see the notorious Norwegian black metal band Mayhem again. I had seen them on the first show of their tour in Baltimore on November 2nd, but now they were back in the area playing the final show of their tour. The set list was the same as the first show, however vocalist Attila Csihar had a different costume on (he is known for having a wide range of stage costumes). This time he did not have any fake blood, and he held a skull in his left hand for the entire set. The audience seemed much more dead than the crazy pits that happened in Baltimore a month before, and the band didn’t seem to get into the show as much either. Being the final show of the tour they were probably a bit worn out. The audio mix at Jaxx wasn’t as good either. Overall I wouldn’t say the show was bad, it just wasn’t great, and the Baltimore show definitely felt more like a real Mayhem show. The fog machine was on thick all night though, and camera conditions weren’t optimal, however I still got a few decent shots and Mayhem even posted one of my photos from this show on their Facebook wall.

The following Thursday, the 15th of December, I found myself at the Black Cat once again, this time to see the killer line up of The Body, Zoroaster and Black Cobra. The first band to play was The Body, a two man doom band from Rhode Island (though I hear they are relocating). They set their gear up in the middle of the flood of the Black Cat’s back stage area and just played there on the ground, with the audience around them. They were very loud, a theme that would recur throughout the night. After they played Zoroaster took the stage. They’re a psychedelic sludge metal band from Atlanta, Georgia. They have a really trippy vibe while being heavy as well. They had a bunch of lasers shooting around not just the stage but the entire room and it looked pretty cool. Midway through my favorite song of theirs, Odyssey, the power abruptly cut out and the lights came back on for a few minutes before the band finished their set. Then came the headliner, Los Angeles, California based Black Cobra. They’re a sludge metal duo and their latest album, Invernal, is heavy as all hell. They ended up playing every song off of it, though not in order, as well as some of their older songs mixed in. A truly crushing set, it’s amazing how much heavy just two people can make. Take note all you folk bands with like a dozen members, these three bands on this tour had just seven total members between them, and they kicked major ass. Sometimes less really is more.

The next night, Friday the 16th of December, I went to the Velvet Lounge to catch a show I spent a good deal of effort promoting here on DCHM. Borracho was headlining an album release show, the official launch of their LP Splitting Sky. However, there were other bands who played before them. First was a band from Glen Echo, Maryland called Rezin. The guys seemed nice and all but I have to say they weren’t very good. Most of the crowd who had assembled had left by the time their set was over, and honestly I can’t really blame them. The band was very monotonous and they just didn’t do it for me, or apparently that many other in attendance. They didn’t seem to fit with the two other acts on this bill either. However, the next band to play, Kingsnake from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was simply outstanding on stage. They played a style of stoner that was almost southern, though rather dark as well. They had fine tuned their songs and obviously put a lot of effort into practicing them as well. It was a great performance by a band I didn’t really know anything about going in. After they played I got up on stage and swore at the audience about giving out free shit, and then Borracho started their set. The guys were on point this night, really putting on a great show. I’ve seen them a few times this year and this was definitely my favorite of their performances. Before I’d always seen them open for someone so it was great getting to see them play a full length set live for once. Also, it was a good turn out for the second metal show in a row at the Velvet Lounge, which is awesome. Hopefully they’ll continue to let us metal heads take over their spot on U Street more often on the weekends.

On Saturday the 17th of December I went to my third metal show in as many days, this time to see locals Ilsa and Midnight Eye play with two Harrisonburg, Virginia bands, Earthling and Orthrus. They were playing at a small Ethiopian bar, named Asefu’s, that is just a few doors down from DC9 and the U Street corridor. I got there as Midnight Eye was setting up though I really only saw their first song. However, it was a brand new song and it was pretty sweet! I went a few doors down to eat dinner (I was starving) and came back while Orthrus was playing. The thin venue was packed and so I watched the show from the doorway and didn’t take any pictures (the band wasn’t facing my direction anyways). Regardless, they were pretty awesome. They play a sort of catchy black/thrash with death metal style deep vocals. Next up was Earthling, a band I had seen before at the now defunct Corpse Fortress back in March. They were just as fun to see live and I had forgotten how catchy I their tunes are. The final band of the night was DC’s own masters of doom/death metal, Ilsa. They have a dirty and crushing sound, very raw and primal and yet still very listenable. Some of their songs slow almost to a halt but the intensity never wanes. Ilsa is always fun to see live and this show was no different. However, at the end of their set they also played a new song for the first time, titled Man Made Monsters. Lucky for you who missed it, I’ve posted video of both Midnight Eye’s new song and Ilsa’s new song below. You might not be able to see much but you can at least hear them well enough.

Well that wraps up another mega sized concert recap. I have a couple more shows to see before the year is done. You might be wondering why I didn’t cover the Mastodon show at the 9:30 Club in late November, and that’s because I’m not a Mastodon fan. I wanted to see Obscura and Abysmal Dawn play on December 7th but the weather was horrible that night and I didn’t want to drive to Baltimore in it as I knew traffic would be bad (Kyuss played the same night in Balti as well). Also, my camera’s lens was damaged during this time period and I had to wait a few weeks for it to be fixed (wasn’t cheap either!). And no, it wasn’t damaged at a show. Next week I plan on posting a big recap of 2011, from the local scene to the biggest metal stories of the year and it will include a preview of 2012 as well. Until then be sure to check the upcoming metal concert calendar and remember, support the scene you’re a part of!

Another big change happening in the area is the management of Jaxx Nightclub in Springfield, Virginia. The venue has been run by Jay Nedry since June 1994 but he has decided to sell Jaxx to Jason Malhoyt and Jeff Cohen of Outerloop. They will run the day to day operations of the venue starting on January 1st of 2012 though Jay will still book several shows a month for them, mostly the glam/hair bands, death metal acts and various European black and power metal bands. You can read Jay’s statement about the sale here. You can already see some changes at the venue though, the new website design is an obvious one. Unfortunately the calendar is awful to navigate and opening local bands are often not listed on it either. The new logo and site layout does look nice though. Outerloop has also recently taken over Alley Katz in Richmond, Virginia and renamed it Kingdom. It is still closed right now, but it will be opening for the first time under the new management on October 8th when Periphery plays there. Both Jaxx and Alley Katz/Kingdom appear to be switching their ticket sales to a company called Amped & Alive, which also seems to have ties to Outerloop, though I’m not 100% sure what they are exactly.

Up in Baltimore you’ll see that Bourbon Street hasn’t been booking any more shows. The venue is apparently closing down, though the people running it appear to be moving to a new Baltimore venue named the Baltimore Soundstage. This new venue is in the inner harbor area and will hold 1,000 people. However, on select nights they’ll have seated shows that will hold 500 people. I think this is going to be a table setting similar to what you’d find at the State Theatre or the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. There will also be a full menu with things like crab cakes as well as a full bar with wine, beer and liquor. The venue will open on Saturday, September 3rd when Milkman plays there, though the first metal show will be Devin Townsend and Anathema on Wednesday 12 October. The venue is going to sell its tickets through Ticket Fly, the same company that handles ticketing for the 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Aside from Bourbon Street, there have been a few venue closings and other problems of late with area venues. The Hexagon, a DIY space in Baltimore, closed on May 20th. Really it was more of an eviction and you can read their post about that here. So Addictive Lounge in Herndon, Virginia had long been holding Metal Monday local metal band spotlight shows every week before they decided they’d convert to being a gay bar seven days a week. However, the Metal Mondays are not entirely dead as the people behind them have been hosting various metal shows at the Old Firestation #3 (aka Firehouse Grill) in Fairfax City. Now you can see local talent as well as touring bands play there, and it’s still just $5 to get in. Hole In The Sky, a DIY venue in Northeast Washington DC, was shut down by police in the middle of a concert on February 16th. They’ve since done things like build a fire escape staircase to get up to code and have reopened, though they don’t seem to be hosting concerts very often and certainly not metal shows. Silver Spring, Maryland’s DIY space dubbed the Corpse Fortress has been condemned after 5 years of awesome shows. Everyone has to be out by October 1st but there will still be a final show there on September 24th. More info on why it is being shut down is here. This is a huge blow to the area’s DIY scene, metal or otherwise. It had just recently gotten a kick ass paint job in the basement where bands perform, which you can see here.

All is not lost though! There’s the Palace Of Wonders and The Red & The Black which have merged to form the Red Palace on H Street in Northeast DC. They get occasional metal shows, including a special free performance by Clutch that’s coming up on Monday the 29th of August. And while Sonar had a big problem with liquor licenses and almost shut down temporarily back in May (more on that here), it seems it was just a hiccup and they are back to running things as usual again now (although the lot across the street from venue is now metered and thus no longer free to park in). The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring, Maryland seems to be getting more metal shows as well (Auroboros will be performing there this Sunday, the 28th of August for a matinee show at 2pm) and I’d expect to see more metal gigs get shifted there once Corpse Fortress is gone. There’s also a new DIY house venue that’s starting to host a few metal shows in Annandale, Virginia that is called the Cellar Door.

So there is a lot changing in the area’s venues and hopefully this article will help encourage some of you to get out to an extra concert or two that you might not have before. Remember, if you’re looking for info on any of these venues’ upcoming metal shows be sure to check out the DC Heavy Metal upcoming concert calendar here. If you want to know more about any of these venues, including their addresses, links to their website, Facebook page or Twitter, or even on how to book a show there check out the Venue page here.

Filed under: Baltimore Soundstage, Bourbon Street, Concert Reviews, Corpse Fortress, Fillmore Silver Spring, Firehouse Grill, Hole In The Sky, Jaxx Nightclub, Red Palace, So Addictive Lounge, Sonar, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene Tagged: Baltimore, Baltimore Soundstage, Bourbon Street, Concert Venues, Concerts, Corpse Fortress, Fillmore, Fillmore Silver Spring, Firehouse Grill, Hole In The Sky, Jaxx, Jaxx Nightclub, Old Firestation #3, Red Palace, So Addictive Lounge, Sonar, The Fillmore, The Fillmore Silver Spring, Washington DC ]]> http://dcheavymetal.com/2011/08/26/venue-changes-around-the-area/feed/ 1 Metal Chris http://dcheavymetal.com/2010/12/01/review-of-psycroptic-gig-at-jaxx/ http://dcheavymetal.com/2010/12/01/review-of-psycroptic-gig-at-jaxx/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 07:53:09 +0000 Metal Chris http://dcheavymetal.com/?p=2481 ]]> While many people are returning home on the Sunday night following Thanksgiving, I found myself heading down to Jaxx again on the 28th of November 2010. Psycroptic and Keep Of Kalessin, the opening bands on Nile and Ex Deo‘s fall tour were playing a few extra shows without the headliners, and this was the date they came through the area. It wasn’t a long show, only four bands played, and it ended early at around 10pm. Pathology was supposed to be part of the touring line up, but they were involved in a major accident in November (more details here) that ended all touring plans for them. There wasn’t a huge crowd for this show, but that was sort of to be expected. It was still a lot of fun and I finally got to see Psycroptic play live.

The first band to play was local death metal act Orgy Of The Damned. I had seen them play before at the Blood And Fire Festival back in July. They’re still really young, most of the guys had black Xs on their hands. That’s fine though, as again their youthful excitement for the music comes through as a big plus in their set. They played Reanimator which was pretty fun to see live. It’s one of the songs they are giving away for free on my download page if you want to check it out. They also played a cover of the Cannibal Corpse classic Hammer Smashed Face that was pretty cool. In another cue taken from Cannibal Corpse, at the end of their set the vocalist, Jeff Wright, said he “lied” about them not playing Feces Fiend and they closed with that song. The next band up was another local act, Trihexyn. They’re pretty good, just not my kind of metal really. I knew what to expect since I’d seen them before at the State Theatre as part of the second Mandatory Metal night there. They rely heavily on using clean vocals which is something I generally am not a fan of (there are exceptions of course). They are pretty good and have well written songs that they play pretty well so don’t get me wrong here, I’m just not their target audience. They do switch to a more rough vocal style for some parts, and I do find that to be more enjoyable, but I seemed to be in the minority about a few things this evening anyways. Also, the bass player had pink hair, which was a bit weird too but hey metal isn’t supposed to be about fashion anyways (don’t tell that to Cradle Of Filth though!). I’ve got a video of them below so check them out, maybe you’ll like them more than I do.

The next band to play was Norway’s black metal band Keep Of Kalessin. I really didn’t like their newest album, Reptilian, and sadly (for me) their set was mostly made of material from it. It’s all about dragons which wouldn’t be so bad except there’s a lot of that clean vocal singing going on again. So yeah, I’ve become that fan of theirs, the guy who likes only the old stuff. I seemed to be in the minority about that because the audience was reacting well to their performance. And they did play Crown Of The Kings, which is one of their older songs that is totally awesome, but they didn’t play Come Damnation, which is my favorite song of theirs. Their set was only about 40 minutes or so, so I guess they were just doing the same basic set list of songs from their Nile tour, mostly just supporting their new album. I thought they would have played a bit longer, and while I figured they’d play a good amount of their newer material, I also thought they’d play some older stuff since they had the chance to play a longer set. They closed with Kolossus which is a solid song, so overall it wasn’t bad, just not my favorite material for most of the set.

The final band of the night was Psycroptic coming all the way from Tasmania. I’ve wanted to catch them for a long time, as they’re probably my favorite technical death metal band these days (Decrepit Birth is up there too though) and I’ve waited a few years now to catch them live. I didn’t see them earlier this year at Sonar with Nile because I knew this show was coming up and I’d rather go to the closer venue, for less money when they headline. They did play an awesome set, though again it was short. I enjoyed the show a lot and got so caught up with it that when it ended I was kinda mad I’d only shot video of two songs! For me the highlight of the evening was when they played (Ob)Servant, which is just a kick ass metal song. Really, all the songs they played are pretty damn sick. It was like they were putting on a tutorial how you do tech death! I was hoping that since they were headlining they’d play a longer set but they didn’t really. They didn’t play The Colour Of Sleep nor Alpha Breed, two of my favorite songs of theirs. Same as with Keep Of Kalessin, I really wished they’d taken advantage of the headlining slot to play a longer set and included more older material. Their vocalist was a temporary fill in on this tour while their normal singer was staying home to be with his newborn. He did a decent job, his stage presence wasn’t bad and he had a hell of a lot of energy up there, literally jumping around and helping to keep the audience excited. Really though, nobody goes to see Psycroptic because of the vocals, their guitar work is crazy and the drummer is pretty damn tight too. They didn’t have a huge crowd and Keep Of Kalessin seemed to have a larger audience when they played. That didn’t matter to me, I was there to finally see Psycroptic play, and other than the set being so damn short, they didn’t disappoint at all. And I’ve got the videos below to prove it, check em out:

By the time Apothys hit the stage you could tell the crowd was starting to get restless. Originally the band Shotgun Surgery was supposed to play, but they had to cancel and were replaced on the bill by Apothys a week or two before the concert. Apothys always seems to put on a good show live and this time was no exception. They kept the crowd fired up the entire set and the band looked like they were having as much fun up there as anyone in attendance. I noticed that they didn’t play Of Writhing Eyes, a killer song which they have been closing shows with the last couple of times I have seen them. I wonder if that was due to time constraints because the show was running so late. I had just seen them the previous Monday at So Addictive (my review of that concert is here) and while that show was kind of cool for it’s lack of a stage so the band really mingled with the audience, it was nice to see them up on a proper stage with decent lighting again. Sadly the camera I shoot video with had its SD card take a shit and the video I took of them playing Terminus at this show has some error that makes the file unplayable. I didn’t know this until I got home that night and the card also lost one of the videos I shot of the headliner, Loculus. Sucks but what can ya do?

The next band to play, Above The Altar, is a death metal band from Loudon with a lot of thrashy elements and even a few breakdowns giving them a sort of ‘core element to their sound. I had never seen them play before, but they were a good addition to the night’s line up, putting a bit of variation (but not too much) between the two other more standard death metal bands in the line up. Their songs were pretty well put together though they didn’t really grab me too much. Maybe if I was familiar with some of their material beforehand I’d have been a bit more into it. Their lead singer, Toby Gomez, was pretty entertaining with his banter between songs and he helped to keep the mood light between the heavy songs. By the time they ended their set it was getting late though and I was wondering how much time the headliner would have to play.

The next band to hit the stage was Loclus and it was already after 1am when they started playing! They had a big, professional banner with their logo and some artwork up behind the stage that must have cost a bit of money to have made. It was pretty cool looking though. Their guitarist, Steve Miller, had given me their demo a few months back that I really enjoyed, but I still hadn’t had a chance to catch them live yet. I’m glad I made it to this one as they were really on fire. You can tell they had put a lot of work into getting this show together and when they hit the stage it really paid off! They took the stage and really played a no-nonsense very tight set. This was some fast, brutal death metal and Loculus really killed it on the stage here. They were well practiced and they executed their material very well (from what I could tell at least). The drums were pummeling, the guitars were furious and the vocals were out of control. They didn’t talk much between songs, I’d guess that was partially due to the fact that time was becoming an issue this night. However, they did pause at one point to tell everyone to pick up a free copy of the four song EP they were releasing. The mosh pit was going strong the whole set and I think everyone in the room could feel the intensity of their performance. The worst part was that it was so short, they only played five songs, though I think if it was any longer they’d have run out of time for the venue to be open.

It was a great show, and while it wasn’t the first for Loculus it had a sort of debut feeling to it. If you were there and didn’t get a copy of Sinew for some reason, the band has said you can bring your ticket stub to their next concert (date and venue still to be determined as of this post’s writing) and they’ll give you a copy. It was great to see so many people come crawling out of the woodwork to a late gig for local death metal acts. It sort of reminded me of that first State Theatre metal show (my review of that is here) back in August where it was also cool to see how many people came out in support. These kinds of concerts, plus the Blood & Fire Fest, various weekly and monthly metal gigs starting at venues around the area, and the willingness of more and more local venues to host metal concerts are showing this scene really start to come together! I’m glad so many people came out, and glad Loculus not only set this show up, but really killed it Saturday night when everyone was watching to show people this isn’t all just hype. Metal in the greater DC area is on the rise! Now check out the videos from the night that my SD card didn’t corrupt below, and be sure to check back later in the week for my review of Sunday night’s Dying Fetus and Cannibal Corpse as well as the re-opening (finally) of the Downloads page on the site that will have free mp3 downloads of over 20 different local metal bands of various sub-genres.

I arrived at the venue a few minutes before Order Of Ennead played, which was good because I certainly wanted to see them again. They’re a Tampa, Florida based death metal band, and their drummer is Steve Asheim of Deicide fame. I’d seen them open for Deicide a while ago, but it was good to see them standing on their own this time. They played a tight set and I liked it more than the first time I saw them. Partly because I caught the entire set, and also because I think they’ve practiced a lot more and gotten their sound really down. I guess I mean their performance just seemed more professional and polished. In all, a brutal way to start of the night, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Next up was Cannabis Corpse, a sort of joke band from Richmond. Their song titles are all parodies of Cannibal Corpse songs, but changed to make them about smoking pot. For example Skull Full Of Maggots becomes Skull Full Of Bong Hits. That said, their songs are not covers or Weird Al style humorous lyric swaps, they’re more thrashy really. You may recognize their bass player, Philip Hall, from the band Municipal Waste, though the stand out on stage was vocalist, Andy Horn. Even though Cannabis Corpse was the band I was least interested in seeing, he was by far the most entertaining person on stage all night. He was almost constantly moving around, making strange and funny expressions and hand gestures, and even doing things like stumbling around like a zombie on stage. He really kept their set entertaining to me, and he was good at getting the pit going too. Going into the show I thought they should be playing before Order Of Ennead but I think they were a good fit between the two Florida death metal bands. They were a nice change of pace and kept the show from getting monotonous. And even though they weren’t headlining, they finished their set with an encore song, the rarely played live Chronolith (video below).

The next band set to play was the headlining act, Hate Eternal. The other Florida death metal act on the bill, this three piece band is technical and relentlessly brutal. Vocalist/guitarist Eric Rutan is probably best known for his time spent in Morbid Angel, but Hate Eternal is his own baby. Most of their songs aren’t particularly catchy, but then you don’t go to death metal shows to grind on sluts all night do ya? No, you go to hear fast, brutal tunes with insane solos and gutteral vocals so you can let off some steam in the mosh pit. Hate Eternal delivered big time this night, and though the crowd wasn’t by any means the biggest I’ve seen at Jaxx, there were enough people there that the place didn’t feel empty. The band didn’t move around a whole lot on stage, tho Eric would walk to the edge of the stage in a few choice spots and get right up in the audience’s face which seemed to get people excited every time. The band was really tight and really crushed it, especially on songs like I, Monarch and King Of All Kings. They were definitely worth seeing and my ears loved the pummeling.

Well, that’s about it for my “short” review which seems to have gotten to a decent length now. The people at Jaxx were cool and didn’t give me any gruff for shooting video this night, so I shot a lot. The guys in Order Of Ennead actually posted links to their MySpace and Twitter feeds of the vids I posted of them, which is cool. Well, on to the videos:

Fear Factory is a band I liked a lot when I was younger, their first two albums really kicked ass. They had a unique blend of metal with industrial tendencies. What I always found interesting about their sound is they really tried to write songs that sounded mechanical or robotic, not just write metal songs with repetitive keyboards and sound effects added to give it that industrial sound. Then the nu-metal fad hit in the late 90s and while I did like some of the songs on their 3rd album, Obsolete, you could tell the band was changing direction and not in a way I cared about. I didn’t really listen to them much for many years, though a friend of mine would always get their new stuff so I did hear some parts of albums I’d consider forgettable. Through sites like Blabbermouth I’d heard about the band breaking up and reforming and various other bits of drama involving their line up, until at some point I guess they just stopped being a band all together. A few years passed and their original singer, Burton C. Bell got back together with their original guitarist, Dino Cazares, and they got the band going again. Their current guitarist was moved to bass and then they added legendary drummer Gene Hoglan (whose complete credits are far too long to list here) who has been in a wide array of metal bands, from Death to Strapping Young Lad to Old Man’s Child to Testament to the Cartoon Network’s joke band Dethklok. The buzz around this new version of Fear Factory interested me enough to check them out again, and I’m glad I did. Their new album, Mechanize, released in February this year, wasn’t just a return to form from the days I enjoyed them, but they had a new energy and excitement to their sound that had been missing for a while. When I heard they’d be coming to Jaxx on their reunion tour I was excited, I certainly wanted to see this band again. The last time I saw them was almost exactly 11 years before, when they played on the side stage of Ozzfest in 1999, but this new album made them a must see for me after a decade of apathy on my part.

So there I was, up in the front waiting for the band to come on. They started early, a few minutes after 9:30pm, but when they came out the crowd was already excited. They started off with the title track off their new album, Mechanize. People enjoyed it but when they started playing the next song, Shock, the crowd was definitely into the show. I saw a few crowd surfers at this gig, and I don’t know if Jaxx security was being lax on purpose or just slow to the draw this night, but they weren’t kicking them all out as I saw some of them back in the audience throughout the show. The band came out with a good energy, Dino was singing along to the lyrics of most of the songs while playing his 8 string guitar and Burton was getting right up on top of the audience. This set list was certainly tailored to older fans like myself, as they only played 2 songs from albums between Obsolete and their newest. They played the first 4 songs from Demanufacture (one of the best A sides in metal from the 90s if you ask me) and the first 3 songs from Obsolete. They only played 1 song from their first album, Soul Of A New Machine, the overly repetitive yet still catchy Martyr. They said this was the 17th show on the tour and you could tell between songs they were starting to get a little tired as the show went on. At one point they did break for several minutes to thank the other bands, and as a kind of cool gesture they actually learned a riff from a song by each opening band and played it saying the band’s name. I was rather impressed by that and I wish other bands did that sort of thing. The break then continued as they brought out the vocalist, J Costa, from the opening act Thy Will Be Done to do a rather stupid Christopher Walken impersonation to introduce the members of Fear Factory. This really did eat up a lot of time in which they probably could have played another song, but I suppose they were just trying to take a breather. Sadly, they didn’t play my favorite song off the new album, Christploitation, but they did play another song from it for the first time ever live, Controlled Demolition (video below). Luckily they didn’t play their awful Gary Numan cover of the song Cars, which they had a video for that actually got rotation on MTV back in the day (and not on Headbanger’s Ball mind you). They did seem to feel guilty for playing the song Descent and claimed they were playing it for the women in the audience, but I thought it showcased a different side to their typical songwriting and wasn’t a terrible song to add to the set. Their show did seem to be running out of steam towards the end though, and Burton’s voice didn’t seem to be holding some of the notes as well towards the end of the gig. He seemed to be having trouble hitting higher notes as well as holding the breath to sustain longer notes. Still, they put what they had left in the tank into Zero Signal, a personal favorite of mine from way back when, and the crowd seemed to really enjoy it as much as I did. They closed the set with Replica and didn’t do the tacky staged ‘encore’ thing so many bands do. They apparently stayed after the show to sign things for people as I saw a line formed in the main concert hall long after the set was over, that’s always cool of the bands who do that. I had a lot of fun at this show, I wasn’t bothered by security about my camera at all, and they played a set list I really enjoyed. I could see how people who weren’t as familiar with the older material would have preferred a set with more of the material from the past decade, and again I really wanted to see Christploitation live, but I really can’t complain about the set list. They might be a bit older now but they’ve certainly got me interested in the next album they’ll put out and I wouldn’t mind seeing them again in a year or two, just hopefully with better openers, and ones I can arrive in time to see too!

The band came on stage a few minutes after 10pm, and people were ready. Ironically they used a “Projector” on the stage, and had interesting visuals on the backdrop throughout the concert. I prefer this method to the typical banner that most bands put up, as it it much more interesting to look at because it’s dynamic. This combined with the excellent lighting and just the right amount of smoke machine fog made for a very visually stimulating show. They made use of the entire stage and kept their wires, pedals and other equipment very neat and organized. This was probably necessary because the band really likes to move around on stage. I had a great time photographing them and while I often have to move about the audience to get good shots of the various band members that are on different locations on stage, they made it easy for me since they all moved around so much up there.

Ok, the visual stuff is cool and all, but how about the music? Well, I got a photograph of their setlist when they were setting up so I knew what to expect. Sadly, it didn’t consist of much from my favorite album of theirs, Damage Done. They did play Final Resistance though, so I can’t complain too much. Of the 15 songs they played 6 of them were from their new album, We Are The Void, and another 4 songs from their previous album, Fiction. They only played 1 song from before 1999, and they’ve been around since 1991. That’s great if you’re a newer fan of the band I suppose, though I’d have preferred a bit more of the older material in the setlist. Regardless, the band played well and it was a lot fun to watch them. Mikael Stanne has a great stage presence and really hangs right over the crowd for parts of almost every song, even letting fans scream into the mic from time to time. He didn’t talk too much between songs but did say they would probably be back next year. The sound mix wasn’t bad. The keyboards were almost non-existent from where I was standing (front and center) but that’s fine by me. It’s something that happens to a lot of metal bands, where the keyboards that get raised so highly into the mix on the album but are almost impossible to hear live. That’s fine by me though, as I really enjoy hearing the guitars carry the band more live. Also, the vocal style of the growls wasn’t the same as on the new album, another thing I think is good. I don’t really like how they sound on the new album, probably due to layering the vocals in the studio, but I think it made him sound too much like Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy. They played for about 80 minutes straight and luckily they did not do the typical rockstar encore thing. After the show Mikael came back on stage to pound a beer for some reason. Not sure what was up with that as I was already at the merch stand (bought a t-shirt from local opener band Apothys). Apparently the band members of Dark Tranquillity were going to head over to the merchandise area and sign stuff for fans, which is always cool when bands do that, but I didn’t wait around because I’m not that big on autographs.

I remember I’d heard years ago from a few people that Dark Tranquillity wasn’t a good band to see live, but trust me, whoever said that was lying. The last time I saw them I was really surprised on how good of a show they put on, and this time was even better (even if I didn’t enjoy the setlist as much). Though I didn’t have any problems this time, I did hear people in the audience grumbling about security bugging them about their cameras. Regardless, I did shoot two videos (of older songs) which you can see below. Also of note, this will be my last concert review until Maryland Deathfest. I should have a lot of pics and footage of that afterwards, and maybe some other surprises too.

Warbringer was on stage when I got there, so I went straight to the main room and got up front. I thought they’d be done playing by the time I got there, but apparently things were running a bit late so I got to catch a decent amount of their set. These guys were really a lot of fun to watch live. I’ve enjoyed their studio material but this was the first time I’ve been able to catch them play. In the past week I’ve seen a lot of these modern thrash bands (Skeletonwitch, Toxic Holocaust and Municipal Waste) and Warbringer might have had the best stage presence of all of them. Their lead singer, John Kevill, really got the crowd into it, but on top of that the other guys in the band did a good job of getting the audience excited. This isn’t a band where the singer gets everyone into the show and everyone else just sits there playing their instruments. There was a lot to watch no matter where you were looking on the stage.

Next up was God Dethroned. I saw them headline a show at Jaxx back in October 2009 and they really impressed me with their live show so I certainly wanted to see them again. The last time I had seen them they had a woman on guitar, Susan Gerl, but this time they had a new guy, Ian Jeckelis, who is apparently also a member of Abigail Williams. This show performance wasn’t as good as their headlining gig in October. They were plagued with technical problems, and actually played almost an entire song without vocals nor one of the guitars as Henri Sattler tried to find a solution to the problem. There was a pause for a few minutes after that song while the equipment was set back up, I figured they probably had to cut a song out of their set because of the time it took. The final song also seemed to have a problem as about 90 seconds into it the other guitar seemed to go out and Ian stormed off the stage and didn’t return. A shame the show didn’t go better for them, as they’re a good band and people should pay more attention to them. I did talk to the bassist for a couple minutes after they had played, and he said that after the tour they’d be working on a new album and would probably come back to the US after that was out, though he said he didn’t know if it would be as headliners or as support. He said it would be another album about a battle in World War I, but he didn’t say which it would be this time.

The next band to play was an old favorite of mine, Vader. They’re an old school death metal band I’ve been a fan of since I first heard their album The Ultimate Incantation. They are from Poland and are actually one of the first bands of any genre, not just metal, that broke through the iron curtain to the west, due to their early demo material being highly praised on the old underground tape trading scene (for the young people reading this, that’s what people used to find out about new metal bands before the internet had things like Napster or bit torrent, where people would actually trade copies of demo cassette tapes through the regular mail). Unfortunately Vader wasn’t headlining this concert so they didn’t play all the songs I wanted to hear, though they did play some older material like Sothis and Carnal as well as a good amount of newer songs too. They didn’t play my favorite Vader song Silent Empire, which sucks because that song is so damn brutal. The line up has completely changed, except for main man Peter Wiwczarek, since the last time I saw Vader live (in December 2007). They still played very tight and really got the mosh pit going. I’m glad I got to see them again as they always seem to impress with their high speed death metal assault. And I don’t say that lightly, Vader is one of those bands that’s fast even by death metal standards. I had an entertaining time talking to some of the younger guys in the audience while they set up too. One of them told me how he wished he had gotten to see Damageplan with Dimebag Darrell before he died as Pantera was his favorite band. I really felt old when he stared at me wide eyed when I told him I’d actually seen Pantera play several times!

The next band set to play was going to be the headliners Overkill. I’ve never really been a fan of theirs, they’re a bit too “Waaaaah!!!!” for me, if that makes sense, haha. Since the guys who were in front of me on the railing left after Vader played, I got to stand in the front row and figured I’d give em a shot live since I was there anyways. They took longer to set up than any of the other bands, and before they played Jaxx owner, Jay Nedry, came out onto the stage to talk to the audience for a while. He thanked the all bands playing, the roadies, sound and light techs, bartenders and staff and the people in attendance for coming to shows for all these years. He promoted a few of the concerts coming to Jaxx soon (which you can always find out more about on the Upcoming Shows page here on this site) and gave a toast to the war veterans in the audience. After a few more minutes Overkill hit the stage. Their lighting set up was rather impressive I must say, one of the better ones I’ve seen at Jaxx. I took a few pics and figured I’d shoot a video of one of their first songs before I got out of the front and let someone else up there who really wanted to be there. While I was shooting footage on my regular camera something strange happened that I’ve never had happen at Jaxx before (and I’ve seen over 60 concerts there). Security asked me to put my camera away. What the fuck? I wasn’t shooting with a camcorder (though most clubs don’t mind that these days anyways, but I know that’s a no-no at Jaxx). It really took the fun out of the show for me. If I couldn’t use my camera (which I wanted to use to post material here for my review) then I surely wasn’t going to stay to watch a band I didn’t care about otherwise. I gave the guy behind me a chance to take my spot in the front and then headed to the back of the venue. I bought some merch and a ticket to the upcoming Dark Tranquillity gig and left the venue with a really bad taste in my mouth. Maybe Overkill played a great set but from the 2 or 3 songs I saw them play I wasn’t really impressed with much besides the lighting. I’m hoping Jaxx doesn’t turn into another camera-nazi venue like the 9:30 Club and hopefully this was just a 1 time thing, maybe brought on by the band or something. Anyways, the footage I did get of Warbringer, God Dethroned and Vader is all viewable below.

Skeletonwitch put on a good show. I had meant to catch them at The Red And The Black in DC back in February but I had gotten sick and couldn’t make it. I think they were just starting when I got there so I did catch most of their set. They’re pretty fun to watch live, great thrash with catchy riffs and death metal style growling vocals. Though most of the band didn’t do much but head bang in place, the vocalist, Chance Garnett, had great stage presence and really got the audience into the show. They really were a good band for warming up the crowd, though I’d have like to have seen Diabolic and/or 1349 too. I ended up buying a Skeletonwitch pint glass at the merch stand after they played, hard to pass up at just $5 (by comparison Cannibal Corpse was selling a bottle opener for the same price).

There was a rather long delay before Cannibal Corpse started to play. The crowd was getting anxious and started chanting “Corpse!” and within a minute of that the band got on the stage. They came out shredding and the crowd was eating it up. I’ve seen Cannibal Corpse many times before, and this set included the least amount of Chris Barnes era songs, though they did play 2 songs from their debut album Eaten Back To Life, A Skull Full Of Maggots and Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains (someone in the audience was screaming for Born In A Casket during most song breaks though, which they didn’t play). Also of note, they played The Cryptic Stench, from Tomb Of The Mutilated, which I thought was sort of out of left field (they of course played Hammer Smashed Face also). Despite the audience’s requests for songs like I Come Blood and Fucked With A Knife, they didn’t really play many of their more sexually disturbing or misogynist songs, though they did close with Stripped, Raped And Strangled. They also played a couple songs from their latest album, Evisceration Plague, and most of the rest of the set was a sampling of the material from 1998 on. Regardless of what songs they were playing, they played them fast and tight, and the audience was losing it. I did see a couple crowd surfers, a rarity at Jaxx, and the pit was pretty much constant. Their vocalist, Corpsegrinder, talked a bit more between songs than the last few times I saw them. At one point someone yelled out to play the Barney The Dinosaur theme song, which he did not find funny and he went off on a rather entertaining rant about people requesting “retarded songs” before going right into A Skull Full Of Maggots. Still, it probably would be pretty hilarious if they actually played a song like that in the classic Cannibal Corpse style. As usual they didn’t do the typical bullshit encore thing bands seem to always do, which is cool. So lame when you plan your own encore ahead of time. They announced that Hammer Smashed Face would be the final song of the night just before they played it, though just like the last time I saw them in 2007, when they finished playing it Corpsegrinder immediately said they had lied and the band went right into Stripped, Raped And Strangled, which the audience went crazy for.

After the show I hung out a bit talking to some of the people I had met up with for the show in the first place (didn’t have a whole lot of time to talk to them earlier due to the show being early and my late arrival). Local thrash metal band Cab Ride Home apparently played after Cannibal Corpse got their stuff all loaded out, but I didn’t hang around long enough to check them out. I had lots of pics and vids to sort through and the Caps game to watch on DVR. You can see the videos I shot at this show below, though I have 2 more that YouTube is having trouble with for some reason. They both keep getting hung up at about 80% when I try upload them and I don’t know why. I’ll post them here if I can get them to upload correctly, not sure what the problem is. Not a big deal as these vids should give you a good idea of this brutal concert regardless. Enjoy!