This blog specializes in heavy metal music and how it relates to Washington DC and the surrounding area. Featuring info on upcoming metal concerts in Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia, as well as info on local bands, area concert venues, reviews of live gigs, and lots of give aways.
That’s right, DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away tickets to not one, but TWO kick ass shows coming up this weekend. Puscifer (featuring Maynard James Keenan of Tool fame) and Carina Round are playing at the Lisner Auditorium on Saturday the 26th of November 2011, and Mastodon, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang are playing at the 9:30 Club on Sunday the 27th of November 2011. All you’ve got to do to enter is post a comment on this post below telling me which concert you want to be entered in to win. You can enter to win tickets to either one or both, but you can only win a pair of tickets to one of them. Be sure you use a valid email address when you enter so that I can contact you when you win. I won’t put you on any email lists or anything else annoying like that cause I hate spam too. After you spend Thursday gorging like a pig, arguing with your relatives and getting drunk watching football you deserve a prize. So at 5pm EST on Black Friday, the 25th of November 2011, I’ll pick two winners (at random using Random.org) from all the valid entries below, one for each concert. Check out the details of each show below, with poster images and links to where you can hear the bands’ music, then post a comment at the end of this post where you name your poison. Good luck!
Saturday’s show is Puscifer performing live at the Lisner Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University inside the District. It’s a seated show but don’t worry, I’ve got a pair of tickets reserved that one of you is going to win. Puscifer is the name of what is essentially Maynard James Keenan’s solo project that he plays with when he’s not busy with Tool and A Perfect Circle. This is their only area stop on the Conditions Of My Parole tour. The opening act is Carina Round, a British singer and guitar player who has brought her band to the US to open on this tour. If you can’t wait to get tickets or the contest is over when you read this you can buy tickets for $45 from Ticket Master here.
Sunday night’s show is headlined by one of the biggest metal bands out of that huge Georgia metal scene, Mastodon. This tour’s stop at the 9:30 Club is going to be their first area show in support of their newest album, The Hunter, and will be the first time people around here will get to hear any of those new songs live. The middle band is The Dillinger Escape Plan, a metalcore band from New Jersey and the concert will be opened by Portland, Oregon’s stoner act Red Fang. If you don’t want to wait for the contest to end to be sure you can get in to this show you can buy tickets now from Ticket Fly for $30 each here.
Here’s a quick contest for you readers who check in regularly here on DCHeavyMetal.com. Florida’s Torche is bringing their thunder pop to DC9 this Thursday. I’m giving away a pair of tickets to one of you on Wednesday 9 November 2011 at 6pm EST. All you’ve got to do to enter is tell me which song you’d like to hear them close their set with in the comments below and I’ll pick a winner at random from all the valid entries using Random.org. Be sure to use a valid email you check regularly so I can contact you if you win. Also, this show is ages 18+ only, so if you are under 18 you are not eligible. Even if you win they won’t let you in the door, so please don’t enter if you are a minor. If you don’t know any of their song titles you can check out the set list I photographed when they played at Jaxx back in March on the right and pick one from there.
Torche plays a sort of stoner metal and rock hyrbid that is full of great riffs, and they are really fun to watch live. This show should be a lot of fun! They’re playing with the London based band Part Chimp, as well as the regional acts Regents and Chumps. Hell, even if you don’t win you should come out to this show, it’s going to be a blast! You can get tickets from Ticket Alternative right now for $12 here, the price goes up to $14 the day of the show.
Legendary 80’s thrashers Anthrax are coming to the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland this Sunday, the 6th of November! Support on this show will be by not one, but two, awesome Bay area metal bands, Testament and Death Angel. I’m giving away a free pair of tickets to one lucky DCHeavyMetal.com reader and all you’ve got to do is post a comment below telling me which of these bands you’re most excited to see play. I’ll pick one lucky winner at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries at 6pm EST on Saturday 5 November 2011. Be sure that when you post you use a valid email you check even on Saturdays because I’ll need to contact you if you win. You can only enter once, multiple entries will be disqualified. However, you can get your friends to all enter and have them bring you along if they win.
Anthrax has been playing with the Big Four a lot lately, but since they were playing first at those mega shows they’ve been playing shorter sets. If you’d like to see them play a full headlining set, this show is for you! Of course Testament is going to kick ass as well and if you haven’t seen the opening act, Death Angel, play live before you should, they’re pretty damn awesome. That’s three thrash bands that will leave you will one hell of a bangover on Monday morning. If you can’t wait to get tickets, or you just end up not winning the contest, you can buy them online for $30 each here.
I was excited to see the Cavalera Conspiracy play the Rock & Roll Hotel on H Street in Washington DC on Wednesday the 12th of October 2011. The Cavalera brothers, Max and Igor, were founding members of one of my favorite bands when I was growing up, Sepultura. Sepultura, the Portuguese word for grave, formed in Belo Horizante, Brazil, in the early 80’s and by the mid-90’s they had become one of the biggest metal bands in the world. They arose from nothing to sell millions of records, and while the band changed their musical style several times I always enjoyed their material. That is until Max Cavalera left the band in December of 1996. He started his own band, Soulfly, which I never cared a whole lot for. Igor continued on with Sepultura for another 10 years (during that time he was not on speaking terms with his brother Max) though their output simply wasn’t as high quality nor interesting without Max. When Igor left Sepultura in 2006 he began talking to Max again and eventually they decided to form a new band. They were originally to be called Inflikted but even with the alternate spelling another band had already taken the name. They decided to rename the band as Cavalera Conspiracy and title their first album Inflikted. I thought the album was great, however I thought their second album, this year’s Blunt Force Trauma, wasn’t as good though it does have a few songs that stand out. I knew this concert would feature a mix of some Sepultura songs as well as their own material and I was really psyched. The Cavalera Conspiracy has played Baltimore a couple times, but for various reasons I couldn’t get to those shows. I hadn’t seen the Cavalera brothers play together since their last US tour with Sepultura in 1996 and to say I was fired up for this show is a bit of an understatement.
The concert started at 7:30 but I wasn’t interested in seeing any of the opening bands, Otep, Earth Crisis and local support act An Obscure Signal. Luckily I walked into the Rock And Roll Hotel right as the Cavalera Conspiracy was taking the stage, perfect timing. There weren’t as many people as I had expected at this show, maybe about 200. This was their first ever DC appearance people! Anyways, the main thing I noticed about this show was that the sound SUCKED. This was probably the worst sound mix I’ve ever heard at the Rock & Roll Hotel. Now maybe it sounded better by the soundboard, as is often the case with clubs, but this was a metal show dammit. We push to get up front and mosh and go nuts up by the band, not stand in the back staring at our feet wondering why nobody loves me like it’s some hipster band. I get the feeling they had someone who isn’t familiar with mixing heavy metal bands just come in and jack up the bass because, y’know, it’s a metal band. At first I was watching the show on the right side of the stage and I couldn’t even hear the other guitarist, Marc Rizzo. Midway through the set I shifted to the left side of the stage which was better but still not great. All of the videos I shot (you can see them at the bottom of this post) were taken from that area, and you still can’t hear Rizzo’s guitars very well. The high ends were almost completely washed out in the mix, it was terrible. Luckily I know most of their songs, and all of the Sepultura songs, well enough to fill in parts in my head.
While I had a fun time at the show, Max seemed a bit out of it. When the band was playing Sepultura’s classic song Territory, he walked off stage and into the dressing room for about a minute. He came back towards the end of the song and finished it up with the band. However most of the night he seemed a bit, I dunno, like he was mostly just going through the motions maybe. Marc Rizzo was having a blast and just exuded energy, Igor was smiling at the audience between most songs and even the band’s bass player, Johny Chow, looked really excited to be there. Max may very well have been sick though, the band canceled their New York City show the following night, though I haven’t seen an official reason as to why. Regardless, it was cool seeing the Cavalera brothers back in action together and hearing them play some old Sepultura songs. They even played Troops Of Doom from their first album in 1986! There was also a sort of mash up medley of Arise and Dead Embryonic Cells. Sadly, they didn’t play anything from the Beneath The Remains or Schizophrenia albums. The song selection of their non-Sepultura material was pretty good as well. The early part of the set included a lot of songs I would just call ok off their latest album, however they did play some of my favorites like Sanctuary and I Speak Hate later in the set. Max did constantly insist to the crowd to fuck the place up and mosh, and most of the time the crowd obeyed however the strongest audience reactions were for the Sepultura covers. At one point Max introduced some guy named Richie and said he was a new member of the Cavalera Conspiracy family, and the guy did the vocals for one song. I have no idea who he was but he was tending the merch booth after the show. After playing for about an hour the band walked off stage to do the encore, and it seemed like they were waiting for the crowd to start chanting but it resulted in a sort of awkward state for a minute or two. Cavalera Conspiracy has far too many syllables for an audience to chant in unison and some people were looking around confused about if the show was over. The band did come back to play two more songs though, the final song being Roots Bloody Roots.
After the show Marc Rizzo came out and took tons of pictures with any fans that wanted one. I spoke with him for a couple minutes and he said he wants to come back with his solo act soon. If you’ve never heard his solo material you really should, it’s a bizarre hybrid of metal guitar shred and flamenco style guitar that would probably sound like shit if anyone else tried to pull it off. His technical prowess really makes it work and his transitions are seamless. He has a few albums but I think The Ultimate Devotion is his best if you’re interested in checking his solo stuff out. Anyways, in all I had a fun time at the show but due to the poor mix it still left me wanting to see them again soon, hopefully in a better setting. It was still really cool getting to see the Cavalera brothers play together again, something a few years ago I would have never thought possible. There’s just something I love about Igor’s very primal and tribal style of drumming combined with Max’s pissed off, revolutionary vocals and guitars that will keep me a fan of theirs for life. I can tell this is going to be one of those shows where I now go and listen to a bunch of their back catalog for the rest of the week. If you’d like to see more of my photos from this show, check them out on my Flickr site here. And if you’d like to hear how shitty the sound was at the venue, just watch the videos that I shot below.
Yngwie Malmsteen is coming to the brand new Fillmore Silver Spring on Saturday 15 October 2011 and DCHeavyMetal.com has tickets to give away. All you have to do to enter to win is post in the comments below why you’re a fan of Yngwie and/or why you’d like to go to this show. On Friday the 14th of October 2011 at 6pm EST I’ll pick a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the valid entries below to win the pair of tickets to this show! Be sure to enter using an email address you check regularly so I can contact you when you win. And I won’t add you to any email lists or anything either, I hate spam as much as you do.
Yngwie Malmsteen is a neo-classical heavy metal guitar player known for his incredible skill and technique. The guy can solo and shred to an extreme level and is one of the best guitar players in the world. The guitar virtuoso will be playing a Saturday night show at the brand new Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland this weekend. Fans of technical guitar playing will not want to miss this. This tour is to support he most recent album, Relentless, which was released last year. Opening for Yngwie will be Washington DC’s own The Jones, a bluesy rock band. If you simply can’t wait to get tickets you can pick them up from Live Nation here for $25. The doors open at 7pm and should be a great night of shred in Silver Spring.
After you’ve entered the contest check out this promotional video Yngwie put out for this tour, it should give you an idea of what to expect.
Cavalera Conspiracy is coming to the Rock & Roll Hotel on Wednesday 12 October 2011 and DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a pair of tickets to a lucky one of you readers. All you have to do to enter to win is in the comments below post a classic old school Sepultura song title you’d like to hear them play that night. I’m sure they’ll have to play a few covers. If you don’t know any old Sepultura song titles (you call yourself a metal head?) you can check out their discography on the Metal Archives here and don’t pick any songs after 1997. On Monday the 10th of October 2011 at 6pm EST I’ll pick a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the valid entries below to win the pair of tickets to this show! Be sure to enter using an email address you check regularly so I can contact you when you win. And I won’t add you to any email lists or anything either, I hate spam as much as you do.
When I was in high school Sepultura was one of my favorite bands. The Cavalera brothers, Max and Igor, were founding members and in my opinion the backbone of that band. The Brazilian band really started taking off in the 90s, they had several videos all over MTV (back when MTV not only played music videos but metal ones even) and the band’s popularity was going upwards with each new release. However, Max ended up getting married to the band’s manager and she basically Yoko’d Sepultura and convinced him to go solo, forming his own band called Soulfly. I’ll just say they weren’t nearly as good as Sepultura. Sepultura didn’t fare much better, their popularity greatly diminished due to weaker releases after Max left. Igor didn’t talk to Max for years after the split. That is, not until after Igor himself eventually left Sepultura in 2006 and the two not only reconciled but to the delight of Sepultura fan boys like myself formed a new band together. Their first album, Inflikted, I really enjoyed and recommend checking that out if you haven’t. Anyways, the brothers haven’t played in DC since forming, though they did play Baltimore a couple times. I’m really psyched about this show! The opening acts will be Otep and Earth Crisis as well as Maryland based An Obscure Signal. If you simply can’t wait to get tickets you can pick them up from Ticket Alternative here for $22, they go up to $25 the day of the show. The doors open at 6:30 and the show starts at 7:30. This is going to kick ass!
After you’ve entered the contest check out this wild video of Cavalera Conspiracy playing their song Sanctuary. Sorta reminds me of those beef jerky commercials with Bigfoot in them, but with more blood and that weird guy Sloth from the Goonies.
Psst… If this isn’t enough Sepultura nostalgia goodness for you, members of local bands Disciples Of Christ (D.O.C. for short), Mind As Prison and Drugs Of Faith, will be playing a special set of Sepultura covers the Thursday before Halloween. You can get more info on that at show’s Facebook event page here.
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