Archive for Metal & Hardcore
Rockstar Energy Mayhem Fest Wrap-up – August 7, 2010 – Pittsburgh PA
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From the time that we announced the Mayhem Fest 2010 Lineup, I knew it was going to be a pretty sweet show. I was a little iffy on seeing Rob Zombie twice within a two-and-a-half month span, but as you saw from the Rock on the Range 2010 Review, I was more than happy to see him again if he put on the same kind of show twice (he did).
Last year, I was given passes to the show in Cleveland (Mayhem Fest 2009 Recap – Cleveland, OH), but since that didn’t pan out again this year, I was in attendance at the Pittsburgh date. Luckily for me – according to every main stage band – the sold out, 20,000+ crowd was the best the tour offered so far (there are about a half dozen dates left).
As with last year’s, I am just going to do a brief recap of the bands I saw and embed a video of each, in case you haven’t heard them yet. I’ll break it down stage-by-stage. Don’t be afraid of how long this post is going to seem, the majority of the space are the embedded videos.
Here we go:
I missed most of these guys’ set, but did catch the last song, where Johnny Plague (lead singer) instructed the crowd to “separate and get ready for the Wall of Death, making a line from the stage to my mother back there at the sound board, who is probably so proud of her son right now [laughs].” Here is (I think) the song that they played as the Wall of Death was crushing people from the inside out, ‘The Impaler’:
3 Inches of Blood had a pretty good hold on the crowd, despite the fact that they were a bit different from the other bands on the tour. I believe they describe themselves as ‘viking metal’, which is quite obvious from the video for ‘Battles and Brotherhood’:
Next up on the Silver Star Stage was another Century Media band, In This Moment. While they may be written off by some as just a band who is known because of their hot singer, they shouldn’t be – they can definitely hold their own. Their albums have gone from heavy (Beautiful Tragedy) to more radio-friendly (The Dream) to a mix of the two (A Star-Crossed Wasteland). I was actually a little disappointed with their set, but it was to no fault of their own – the sound on Maria’s mic was way too loud and it was detracting from her vocals. However, she still looked awesomely hot as usual, and we made out after their set. The first part is true. Here’s the video for their new single, ‘The Gun Show’:
Next up (not sure why they traded places with Norma Jean – the Mayhem Fest website says they headline this stage) was Atreyu. Their set was awesome. The crowd was super into it, and it was one of those sets that the entire crowd was singing along to their songs. As further proof to just how crappy the video capacity of cell phones are (and I don’t have one from 4 years ago, I have the almost brand-new Droid Incredible), I took a video of Atreyu performing ‘Right Side of the Bed’, which should have turned out SICK, but instead sounded like total garbage. Weak. Here’s the official video for that song, which was off their album The Curse and has a bunch of porn star guest appearances. Nice.
Norma Jean actually had the smallest crowd out of any band on the Jager or Silver Star stages. I’m going to attribute that to the fact that they were playing right before Five Finger Death Punch was about to start the bands who were playing on the main stage. The side stages were running behind, so by the time that we left Norma Jean’s set (which was a little early anyways), they had already started. HOWEVER, what we saw during their set was totally worth it.
After Cory (lead singer) instructed the crowd to form a circle pit (which we did), someone in a motorized wheelchair got into it and started riding around in circles. Hell. Yes. Everyone was giving him pats on the back and were psyched to see this dude having a good time.
Here is the literally brand-new video for ‘Deathbed Atheist’, from their latest album, Meridional:
The first band on this stage was actually the Battle of the Bands winner (there is a local one for each stop on the tour) and that band for Pittsburgh was Waiting For Never. There isn’t anything that I could find for them on YouTube except for a crappy cell phone video from their performance. Shadow Fall – while being one of the first bands on this stage – had control of the crowd big time. People got into their set and got into it quick. Here’s the video for ‘Thoughts Without Words’, which is akin to most of the songs they played during their set. They definitely catered towards the metalheads in the audience, rather than playing anything softer like one of their latest singles, ‘Redemption.’
Hatebreed closed the Jager stage, and as expected had some intense fan participation (Chimaira was also on the stage, second to last, but I missed their set for a a reason I can’t remember right now). They have a lot of big, anthemic choruses in their songs, which makes it easy to get the crowd involved. The band actually brought out Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe for two songs during their set. Also, August 7th is Jamey Jasta’s birthday, which made the date extra special for him, I’m sure. Here’s an older video of theirs for ‘I Will Be Heard’, one of the songs that got the crowd into their aforementioned state:
If you want to get the gist of these guys’ live show, refer to the link at the beginning of this post for the Rock on the Range review…no need to repeat myself twice. If you haven’t heard them, here’s a taste (‘Hard to See’, from their latest album, War is the Answer):
Lamb of God probably had the most fans there of any band. I’m going to guesstimate that Korn, the headliners, came in second place. LoG shirts were EVERYWHERE in the crowd. Lamb of God is one of the biggest names on metal, so I am going to assume you have heard (or at least heard of) them before. They had some awesome crowd control of the people down in the pit right in front of the stage and tore through a majority of their bigger songs, including ‘Now You Have Something To Die For’ and ‘Walk With Me in Hell’, the song embedded below:
Rob Zombie’s set at Rock on the Range was just plain sick…giant monsters, video screens, pyrotechnics, costumes and plenty of makeup. He brought a very similar stage show and slightly different stage show to Mayhem Fest. I was totally okay with that. Unfortunately for Korn, while they weren’t as bad as Limp Bizkit was, they had to go after this display. Rob Zombie had the best control over the crowd out of anyone on the main stage and a lot of that has to do with his stage presence and theatrics. Something that went over a majority of peoples’ heads was that the stand in drummer (Zombie’s normal drummer broke his foot) was Joey Jordinson of Slipknot. I didn’t even know that he made a video for this song until about five minutes ago, but here you go – Zombie’s video for ‘Sick Bubblegum’ off of Hellybilly Deluxe 2:
The other nu-metal giant of the late 90′s and early 00′s, Korn headlined the entire show. I personally didn’t like this choice, but with a new album out and (what I assume to be still a) loyal following after all these years, it makes sense. Jonathan Davis can definitely still get into the music and flail around onstage with the best of them, although people in the crowd knew that they were either going to love or hate their set before it even started, similar to what happened to Limp Bizkit at Rock on the Range. I will say that they played the big hits that I know (I stopped listening to them when a majority of everyone else did, after they released Issues); including ‘Got the Life’, ‘Falling Away From Me’, ‘Freak on a Leash’, and ‘Blind.’ Out of all the videos they have made, I chose ‘Freak on a Leash’ to embed below. Even if you hate Korn, just mute it and watch – the video is pretty sweet.
Overall, just as last year, Mayhem Fest 2010 was an all around success. Music for 9 straight hours, beautiful weather, and plenty of crazies in the crowd; all for ~$30. What’s not to like?
See you next year, Mayhem Fest. The countdown has begun again.
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
More Than A Thousand
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The funny thing about the point in time when I discovered More Than a Thousand is that I had just recently had a conversation with a friend about how there aren’t many bands that can capture the sound A Day To Remember has.
ADTR grew as a band into a perfect combination of pop-punk hooks and metalcore instrumentals/vocals where necessary.
Likewise, on More Than a Thousand’s (MTAT) second full length album, Volume 4: Make Friends and Enemies, they have established their place as the heir to the throne.
Earlier albums by MTAT were rawer, and focused more on the metalcore aspects of their music. This album also throws in the melodic choruses that have become a staple of the best bands in the genre. That probably makes them sound like quite the cookie-cutter band; but as you can see by the video embedded below for ‘It’s Alive (How I Made a Monster)’, they should be one of the bigger names in the genre. Unfortunately, being from Portugal, they aren’t getting the exposure they should be over here in the states.
Similar to ADTR’s Homesick, the album doesn’t focus only on heavy tracks. For example, tracks 4 and 5 (‘First Bite’ and ‘Nothing But Mistakes’, respectively) could only be on further ends of the spectrum if an acoustic guitar was involved.
Here are some choice snippets from the band’s bio:
More Than A Thousand was born in Portugal, lives in London, records in Sweden, sings in English and plays universal, driving, contagious rock hard music. The core of this hardworking band has been together since 2001, honing an explosive live show and masterminding a DIY promotional campaign that has built a huge and exuberant following in their native Portugal. They moved to London in 2005 to expand their realities and take their engaging message to a wider audience: The world is a stage and it’s yours to take…Vasco Ramos sings, with occasional help from guitarist Filipe Oliveira. The lineup is rounded out by Sergio Sousa on guitar, bass player Rui Grenhas and drummer Pedro Pais. Filipe, Vasco and Sergio write and produce.
In 2007, the band decided it was time to release an EP for the fans. Something heavier, direct and with the same ambience present on “Vol.II”. After playing with Metallica and Mastodon in June, they started recording “Vol.III: MAR”…More recently, in April 2009, they went to Baltimore, USA, to record the follow-up of Volume III. This time the production was supervised by Paul Leavitt (Gwen Stacy, All Time Low, I Am Ghost), named Volume IV: Make Friends And Enemies.
The band is also playing Resurrection Fest 2010, which has Lagwagon, Sick of it All, No Use For a Name, Gallows, and plenty of others on the bill. I have no idea where the three day festival is being held, but seeing that the Resurrection Fest Website is all in Spanish, I’m gonna take a wild guess and say it’s not anywhere close to east coast of the USA. Therefore, I am outta luck unless they want to fly me out there…I wouldn’t put up too much of a fight if that happened.
Also, while he doesn’t look QUITE as much like him in the press photo above as he does in the video below, tell me that the lead singer of MTAT couldn’t be the brother of Andrew WK. I dare you.
For more information on More Than a Thousand, visit the More Than a Thousand MySpace Page. They have recently posted a video on there for their song ‘Roadsick.’
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
Ardor
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It always helps when you have a hot lead singer like Christine Varian in your band, let’s be honest here. The pictures below definitely caught my eye; but really, the tie obviously makes them, don’t you agree? Aside from that, NO BIG DEAL.
Now let’s get to the music part of this review. After all, this isn’t Maxim.com…although some of you might like that as well.
Here is a brief bio of the band:
Ardor is a female fronted archetypal alternative/metal band hailing from Columbus, Ohio. Founded by guitarist Brian Gerbetz (formerly of the band Lateral Fold) in mid- 2008, Ardor has quickly surpassed the expectations of the Mid-West metal scene and abroad. Working with widely reknown producer Steve Dwyer (of the accredited bands Taproot/OnceOver), Ardor has been leaking tracks prior to their debut self-titled release due out in June, 2010. Already making waves with their originally unfamiliar, yet undeniably epic sound & gaining the respect of thousands of Avid Metal Listeners, Ardor has been working hard to give the media and the fans an experience unlike any other.
The closest comparison I can make for these guys is a crossover sound of either Evanescence or Flyleaf mixed with Arch Enemy. Christine does scream/growl, but she also can carry a melody. Angela Gossow, on the other hand, prefers more of the full-on verbal assault method. In fact, the first time I listened to Arch Enemy I didn’t know their lead singer was female.
As far as Ardor goes, I could definitely see them being on Mayhem Fest 2010. With In This Moment on the bill, they would fit in well. In comparison to ITM, Ardor falls more on the rock side of the line and ITM on the metal side.
To be totally honest, I actually think another of the songs on their MySpace page would have been a better choice for a video rather than ‘Love Like Mine’ – that song being ‘Be(lie)ved.’ I’d highly suggest you head over to their MySpace page and check that one out. I feel like the topic addressed in ‘Love Like Mine’ (take a wild guess) is a little too cliché. Another song that could have fit as a single is ‘Lost in Black.’ Both of these showcase Christina’s inner Angela Gossow and her inner Amy Lee (Evanescence) with the screaming/singing, respectively.
While you are there, if you hate Madonna, feel free to check out Ardor’s cover of ‘Like a Prayer’…just to spite her.
Also, +500 bonus points to Jared for wearing that Anberlin shirt in the photo.
For more information on Ardor, check out the Ardor MySpace Page.
Recommended If You Would Like: harder versions of Evanescence/Flyleaf, Arch Enemy
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
As I Lay Dying Parallels Music Video Premiere
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As I Lay Dying has just released their video for ‘Parallels’ off their new album, The Powerless Rise. Check it out below.
You can also check out the As I Lay Dying Live Concert Videos and the As I Lay Dying Concert Photos from both nights at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA, by following the links to the Outsider Vocals Facebook Page.
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
