10/21/09 - Metalacolypse Tour
Got there an hour before the doors opened, and we decided to wander around downtown Detroit. I've been in a lot of cities, but Detroit has the weirdest people ever. On one side of the street are people getting Mercedes valet parked, on the other people are selling crack. I haven't been assaulted by so many homeless people since I was in DC, and DC is mostly because they hang out in the tourist areas. Obviously a city on hard times. Found a bar and drank 3 or 4 Bell's Two Hearted on tap which was good.
High on Fire opened and was terrific. The Fillmore has a kickass PA and they were the loudest band I've ever heard. They launched into Fury Whip and it sounded like the world was being ripped in half. Their bass player needs to lay off the heroin or whatever he is on because he intermittently looked like he feel asleep on stage. Luckily Matt Pike is so overpowering it doesn't really matter. They played a song off their next album, "Frost Hammer", that brought the place to a near riot. Top notch.
Converge played next. I don't think anyone has any idea why they are on this tour, or not opening, I don't think anyone came to see them. It was your typical mathcore masturbation, play random notes while doing karate kicks and the lead singer runs around and makes dry heaving sounds into the microphone. Thankfully it was short. On the plus side at least he stayed positive and thanked the crowd a lot. I felt kind of bad for them because this isn't their audience.
Mastodon came on shortly after. I had seen clips on Youtube of them playing pieces from Crack the Skye earlier this year and prepared to be disappointed, but they have tightened it up and improved 100 fold. They played Crack the Skye in it's entirety like a well oiled machine and the crowd was really into it. The accompanying video was freaky as hell and made it feel like an acid trip. Brent Hinds looked like a raving lunatic the whole time, I'm glad I was on his side of the stage. Afterwards they played some older stuff, and included Mother Puncher in the encore which was superb. They got a huge reaction and were probably the high point of the night.
Dethklok played last. Brendon Small has some serious chops and the accompanying videos were pretty funny, but they aren't really all that exciting to watch. They pretty much stood there and went through the motions. Considering his profession is TV show writer/creator I'll give him a pass. They hit all the songs people wanted to hear and played them all flawlessly and gave some serious laughs in between songs with his voices. The younger crowd was all their to see them and loved it. I guess being an adult and watching cartoons makes me different.
All in all it was a good time, and worth seeing.