The opening band was the band that we went there to see specifically. The Agonist is a female fronted metal (metalcore/deathcore/death metal) band that my friends really love. Its easy to see why. The chick fronting the band has such charisma, style, and a great voice for cleans as well as screaming. I would say that The Agonist sounds even better live than they do on record, and I've heard them a lot on record because of my friends. Seeing them perform was a first for me in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever seen a woman singing super aggressive metal live and doing it with such grace, style, and sonic fury. It was pretty amazing. Definitely a memorable experience!
The next band was called Winter Plague or Plagues, something like that. I can't remember because their name was nothing remarkable. They were more of a stereotypical sort of metalcore band where they played lots of fast heavy riffs with a guy screaming over the top of all of it. The best part was when the keyboardist girl sang a song. The lead guitarist had some better solos than the guitarists in The Agonist but overall their band was a bit too cliche for my metal tastes. Totally the opposite of the next band...
Next up was Death Angel. These were the grandmaster metal musicians of the night. They were older, cooler looking, more talented, and way more metal than all the other bands, even The Agonist. They were my favorite band. The band featured two Asian (most of them are Filipino) guys on guitars and they absolutely shredded through heavy metal guitar riffs and solos. The lead guitarist was so fast and maniacal. There was a sense that anything and everything could happen at anytime during his solos, it was very daring and adventurous even though he was making mistakes and hitting bum notes at times. This set him apart from the other guitarists of the night who seemed to be playing stock solos that they play every night at every show.
Their drummer was a fat white guy bigger than me but who was so fast and technical. He was probably good enough to play in Dream Theater or something, his double bass drum patterns and fills were so spot on. The singer was good but his voice didn't exactly stand out as much as the other musicians. Also, the singer looked a lot like Tom Araya, singer/bassist of Slayer. That was funny because they're both in thrash metal bands from the 80's. Their set was definitely the best of the night. There was a sense that most of the people there went to see Death Angel and their fans really shouted and moshed in the pit hard for them. How could a band called Death Angel not play great heavy metal music?
Finally, after standing around all night we got to hear the headliner. Devil Driver is a popular metal band that plays such stock cliche gun metal gray (to quote Marty Friedman on Megadeth) music that it was too bland to enjoy. Their singer didn't have a great voice, their riffs were generic and fast but not technical enough to be interesting, and the songs didn't really go anywhere. The good thing that I can say about them is that they played their entire set almost as if they were playing an album live in the studio. They didn't even stop to say anything in between songs. It was just start, finish, start, finish, and repeat. I like that sense of urgency from musicians. They played the longest set and after a certain point I wanted them to stop playing and they kept going on and on. Eventually they ended the show. And that was that.
As you can imagine I was really tired after the show ended. I'm actually super tired right now the day after. Thinking about it all now I'm still not the biggest fan of modern metal and I would go so far as to say that Devil Driver was annoying. But still, I'm glad I got to see The Agonist and Death Angel. Also, you'd be surprised how many hot girls were at this show. Seems like metal musicians probably get a lot of hot girls. But that's a story for another post.
Think I'm gonna lay low off loud things and heavy metal music for a while. Till the next concert that is. Btw, that's a young picture of Death Angel.
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