That`s right. I paid to see a fictional metal band, from a cartoon parody of metal musicians, birthed from the magical brain guts of Brendon Small. Please note that this was the third, yes you read that correctly, third time i pay to see them play live. Real money.
And it was worth every penny. The roadies setting up the stage for them and testing the microphones and instruments? All dressed as Klokateers. Even the sound guy all the way in back of the room. Fucking amazing. It made me so sad we didn`t go dressed as Klokateers as i had intended… next time for sure!
The opened with the Deththeme, of course, and then launched right into one of their new songs, I Ejaculate Fire. I had gone without hearing the new album specifically so i could hear it for the first time live, and it did not disappoint. This video is exactly what i fucking love about Dethklok! Forgive the shabby youtube link, there is a stupid commercial before the song. Other fan favorites included the Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle, Murmaider, Thunderhorse, The Gears, and Awaken. There was more but you get the idea.
Now i know for some people, gimmicks and videos during a live performance isn`t your idea of a live show. And to a certain extent, i can agree with you, especially since i`ve seen this particular gimmick twice before. So when Brendon Small and the band launched into their regular performance, silhouetted in colorful lights in the foreground of a gigantic screen displaying animated video clips, i was a little disappointed that they had not changed things up a little, and feature the actual musicians over the cartoon. This is just not as engaging to me as a band reaching out to the crowd and riling it up.
Brendon Small
They went through the entire setlist this way, and disappointment aside they played every song perfectly. My only complaint was the sound quality of the venue, the music was too loud and drowned out the vocals quite a bit. What made the night for me however, was the encore.
Brendon Small came out and spoke to the crowd directly, as Nathan Explosion, Pickles The Drummer, Murderface, and Skwisgaar Skwigelf. He had the whole place screaming, laughing and chanting, particularly when, as Nathan, he announced “I`m gonna go stick my dick in a poutine after the show.”
Then he played my personal favorite, Go Into The Water. Happy!
I bought myself a tour shirt, which i plan on mutilating Sophie-Style tomorrow. I love band Shirts. I was sad they didn`t have a Machinehead one that i liked. I`ll see if i can order one online.
Speaking of Machinehead they were ON! I had only seen them play once before, with Arch Enemy many years ago. I`ve never really listened to them, but they were really fun to watch. They played Halo, which i very much enjoyed, methinks i`ll be visiting the iTunes store this night. The place was pretty packed for these guys.
Before Machinehead was All That Remains. These guys aren`t bad at all… i`d known their song Six from playing Guitar Hero, and that`s about it. It killed my fingers let me tell you. They played a good set, the crowd was really into them, and they had the fiercest mosh pit i had seen in a while! They were spinning so fast at one point i thought i`d had one beer too many. Again the issue here with the sound. These guys had it pretty bad, they kept having to pause between songs to try and fix something around the drums.
Opening band was Black Dahlia Murders. Their sound was, i`m afraid to say, just awful. All we could hear was overloud growling vocals and double bass drums. We couldn`t hear the strings at all, so there goes any melody or riffs they may have had. I don`t know this band, i would have liked to hear what they sound like live. I`m not sure if these guys all had their own sound technicians, or if they had to make do with poor venue equipment, but this pretty much ruined the show.
