Before I get in to the who, what's, & why's, let me explain the wheres. The venue is this crazy place called the Masquerade. I have no fucking clue what part of the city it's in, but it's gigantic. It had an upstairs (heaven or room 1) a downstairs (hell or room 2), a third side stage (purgatory or room 3) and a huge outdoor stage under a tent. Heaven and Hell were both pretty sizable venues on their own and I'm going to guess that there were well over 5,000 people there. Probably closer to like 8K. Not really sure. Anyway, the first two bands I saw were outside on the main stage. (quasi)hometown favorites Kylesa kicked the day off at right around 1:00pm. Under the tent was already packed when we got there which was a good sign of things to come. Sadly, the sound guys hadn't worked out all the kinks quite yet, most people were pretty sober, and it was light outside. Despite all these setbacks, Kylesa still ripped it open. Laura's vocals were super high in the mix, and although it sounded kind of funny, you could really hear how gnarly and abrasive she can get. Sheer grit and growl. Compared to the other Philip and Corey (the guitarist and bassist respectively), she really held down the fury.
In general the songs were the driving, heavy, blend of metal and punk I've come to expect from Kylesa. I do think putting them in the opening time slot was a strange decision because of their GA native status but all in all it seemed to work out. Most of what I heard was off "Time Will Fuse It's Worth" and the earlier albums but I'm pretty sure they had a song or two off of the upcoming (or already leaked depending on how in the know you are...) Static Tensions. I'm not exactly a Kylesa expert yet but I know they fucking ripped on all their songs, especially "Hollow Severer" and "Where the Horizon Unfolds." You could really hear Laura's vocal cords ripping apart on "Horizon". All in all a good set under not the most favorable conditions.
After Kylesa, Vic and I opted to hang in the big tent to catch Torche's set. Recently, I've been listening to a shit ton of Torche. All of their albums, even the poppy new one. Shit is just addictive. I saw them last summer playing with Boris and they absolutely wrecked me. At that point I'd only heard snippets of their stuff and a song or two here and there. Walking in to that show midset destroyed my perception of them. It was easily one of the loudest, heaviest shows I had ever seen up to that point. Grinding, 50ton riffs, falling from the sky like anvils. When they played Meanderthal I thought I was going to suffocate under feedback and distortion. Exactly what I wanted to hear again at Scion. Sadly, when they got on stage there were only three members left. Leaning heavily on their later, more melodic songs, Torche kind of struggled through a mountain of equipment fuck ups. The bass amp died super hard in the middle of their first song and they had to borrow a head from one of the other bands. Again, it was still early in the day, the sound wasn't really dialed yet, and everyone was pretty sober at the at point, even still they managed to eek out a passable set. I'd really recommend seeing these guys at an indoor venue with good sound though. Totally makes the set. I'm not sure what they have in their future but I think I lean more towards the earlier, floor sounding stuff.
After a good solid 2 hours of doom, it was time to head inside for some fucking THRASH!
continued in part 3...
Monday, March 9, 2009
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