SHOW REVIEW: 9/27/09 – Pittsburgh, PA: HardDriveLive.com Tour featuring All That Remains & Lacuna Coil

As anyone who follows us on Outsider Vocals’ Twitter and/or is a fan of Outsider Vocals Facebook knows, I was pretty excited when I heard that All That Remains was coming to Pittsburgh again with the HardDriveLive.com Tour. Just a short time, in fact, after they had been here for their stop on the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival (the Pittsburgh date was August 1st. For a review on the Cleveland show, which I attended, here you go – Cleveland Mayhem Fest Review).

The first band on the bill was From Sword to Sunrise, who did their best to motivate the crowd, but most of them just weren’t having it. At one point after a song, the lead singer said ‘This next song…’ ‘Will be your last?!?’ one concert-goer yelled. Their vocals are almost Hatebreed-esque, channeling more of the in-your-face yells than the guttural screams. Devoted fans of the metalcore genre might be interested in them though. Most of the fans at this stop on the HardDriveLive.com Tour, however, were not; although there were a decent number who liked the cover of Skid Row’s ‘Youth Gone Wild.’

The next band on the bill, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, sounded like a more punky and funky version of Alexisonfire. However, if you never heard the music and just saw the band members walking on stage, you would think they were members of a Grateful Dead tribute band – especially Dallas Taylor (ex-Underoath), who looked like the second coming of Jesus. The band was pretty high energy though, and the lead singer thrashed all over the stage like no one’s business. They seemed to have a pretty good following at the concert, as the second song in their set really got the crowd going. The lead singer was also pretty funny with his dialogue in between songs, but that could have just been because he seemed high as a kite. Don’t take my word for it though.

Here is a sample of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster.

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster – Darkest of Kin

Next we had like a 35 minute delay to set up some speakers in the front of the stage for Lacuna Coil. Not exactly sure what was going wrong, but after a while the crowd got pretty antsy.

Finally, close to 9 PM, Lacuna Coil took the stage. To be honest, they didn’t really fit the bill. They are much more of a hard rock band than a metal band. But they were by far the most accessible band that took the stage. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, they have dual lead singers (one male, one female), and were recently on tour with Disturbed. So you can tell that they appeal more to the mainstream hard rock fans. However, a bunch of people were at the merch table after their set buying t-shirts, so apparently they made some new fans. They definitely had the biggest fan base there besides the people who came specifically to see All That Remains. Overall, I would definitely say give Lacuna Coil a listen if you haven’t already. There are only a small handful of rock bands with female lead singers that I can get into, but this could definitely be one of them.

Here is the video for ‘Spellbound’ from Shallow Life:

Lacuna Coil – Spellbound

After their intro song of ‘Run This Town’ off of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3, All That Remains took the stage and immediately tore into ‘Before the Damned’ and sent the crowd into a frenzy.

The crowd was especially rowdy for most of the show, and even more so after Phil Labonte (ATR’s lead singer) reminded everyone that security was there to keep them safe, and they were all there to keep the security people busy.

He also had some choice words about the Indianapolis Colts and the Manning brothers, which I will not repeat here. It made the crowd pretty happy though. So did the announcement that behind their hometown, Phil thought that Mayhem Fest’s stop in Pittsburgh was the best one out of the entire tour.

The band also decided to play three songs off of their sophomore release, This Darkened Heart, which they made appear to be a pretty out-of-the-ordinary occurance. I don’t think I have heard more than one song from that album at their previous two shows.

For the second encore, Phil gave the crowd a choice of songs, and the crowd chose ‘Indictment’, the last track off of The Fall of Ideals. He promised to play it only after reminding the crowd that “Indictment is a heavy song…so I’m gonna need you guys to get real stupid out there, alright? Actually…I have an idea. Split it right down the middle. And if you don’t wanna get knocked out, this is when you should get up against the wall or out of the way.” Needless to say, the crowd went pretty berserk at that point – luckily I was on the upper level so I just got to see people ramming into each other, and didn’t actually get run into myself.

Their set list looked like this (I missed what a few of the songs were that they played off This Darkened Heart, so if anyone can help me out in the comments section, please do!):

Before the Damned
Not Alone
Become the Catalyst
Six
The Weak Willed
Forever in Your Hands
The Air That I Breathe
Tattered on My Sleeve
??? (two tracks from This Darkened Heart)
This Calling
Undone
Chiron

First Encore

Days Without
Two Weeks

Second Encore

Indictment

Overall, a very solid showing and much more intimate than the previous two times I had seen them since it was a club show and not a festival.

Also, they just today announced a spot on the Napalm and Noise Tour with The Devil Wears Prada, Haste the Day, and Story of the Year. Not a bad lineup at all.

See our previous All That Remains review, where you can purchase their albums and more

Check out the video for ‘This Calling’ from The Fall of Ideals:

All That Remains – This Calling

All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.

09282009