Many of you that go to concerts regularly in our area may know Metal Nick for some of the awesome photos and videos he shoots of metal bands. Well last Sunday he was at the Fillmore to photograph the Meshuggah and High On Fire tour for DCHM and he wrote up this review to go with them. Enjoy!
On Sunday, November 6th, 2016, Meshuggah and High On Fire rolled through Silver Spring, Maryland, at the Fillmore Silver Spring. This was the final show of the tour to support Meshuggah’s latest album, The Violent Reason of Sleep. High on Fire opened the show. The building had filled in quickly so they performed in front of a large crowd. Their live shows have always been full of large, crushing, sludgy guitars and drums which set the mood with the crowd almost immediately. After they finished their first song vocalist Matt Pike yelled out “Hello Baltimore!” I am not sure if that was a joke or he really thought he was in Baltimore. Once the drums started rolling in the beginning of “Turk” a huge roar of joy came from the crowd, it seems that was the most anticipated song of the night. They played for 35 minutes and surprisingly the Meshuggah fan base was really welcoming to their sound.
Meshuggah went on next and came out to a really creepy sounding intro that fit the vibe of their live show. They opened with the first track off The Violent Reason of Sleep titled “Clockworks” which made the audience at the Fillmore go crazy. It wasn’t long before the crowd surfers started coming over the rails, even Ant Scot, the famous wheelchair crowd surfer, made an appearance. Their progressive metal sound was complimented well with their flashy strobe light that very rarely contained any color lights. All in all their set was very enjoyable consisting mostly of songs off their last three albums with a few older tracks sprinkled throughout the set. One tune I was surprised to hear was the 9 minute song “Dancers To A Discordant System” off the Obzen album. Throughout the night there were a lot of chants for “Bleed” and when Meshuggah finally played it the pit became more aggressive. They closed their set with their classic song “Future Breed Machine,” off of the 1994 album Destroy Erase Improve, which is always a huge crowd pleaser. I would say that if you haven’t seen this tour go check it out, but this was the final date of this particular tour, hopefully both bands will hit the road and come through again in 2017.
Matt Pike of High On Fire
Jeff Matz of High On Fire
Des Kensel of High On Fire
Ant Scot riding high
Jens Kidman of Meshuggah
Dick Lövgren of Meshuggah
Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah
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