It's Big It's Heavy It's Wood

In a random fit of restlessness I flipped out and paid a scalper far too much money for an Unearth/Lamb of God/Killswitch Engage ticket. The band I was interested in seeing, Lamb of God, were pretty good but overall the show wasn't worth what I paid for it.

Impressions and shaky digital camera photos follow:

Based on the two songs of theirs that I caught, Unearth sound pretty much the same as Lamb of God. I hadn't heard them before and was interested but not as interested as I was in the drinks queue.

Lamb of God rocked out quite satisfactorily. A good mix of old and new stuff (their older stuff sounds a lot more fucked up than their new album, I may have to pick some of it up). They performed with ferocity and got the moshpit fairly intense towards the end of their set. I was stoked to hear them play 'Blacken the Cursed Sun', which is pretty much the reason I decided to go, just for the awesome call and response at the end:

Can we still be saved? (Hell No!)

Does your God hold a place for us? (Hell No!)

Is there time to repent? (Hell No!)

Will we rise from the dead? (Hell No!)

Can these sins even be forgiven? (Hell No!)

I was into it but the response from the audience could have been better.

Then it was time for Killswitch Engage. I honestly couldn't have named a single one of their songs before the start of their set, but thirty seconds in I picked them as the author of numerous shitty second rate nu-metal anthems that I am tormented with weekly in the local metal clubs.

I would just leave it at those few words of disdain if it weren't for their atrociously retarded between song banter. “Dude this stuff you're throwing up on stage isn't like, made of loads of money!” apparently plays well to the brainless 'just graduated from emo to nu-metal' crowd, but to anyone not giggly on account of their being at their first ever concert with actual beer in little plastic cups and sweaty fat old guys with mullets and West Coast Chopper t-shirts it makes you embarrassed to be listening. And I guess that goes double for Killswitch's music as well.