Geek On The Mountain

Sworn Enemy pretty much sucked. I shouldn’t exactly say that. They were OK, but compared to the other bands they just sucked. Their vocals were a tad off but otherwise they didn’t sound too bad. On the upside as well, they ended their set (of like 3 or 4 songs) with a tribute to Dimebag….they went into one of his riffs for a minute. It was instantly familiar, yet I couldn’t put a name to the song right away which I often have trouble doing and I couldn’t remember what the hell they were playing after hearing 3 other bands afterwards…that was cool though. I believe Shadows Fall mentioned Dimebag as well come to think of it…SE also played extremely early. Probably on about a quarter of the crowd was actually there.

Shadows Fall played next. I thought they were pretty good. They had more of a normal length opening set (30-45 minutes). I think I had seen pictures before, but I didn’t exactly remember how wacky their lead singer’s hair is….This is a white guy with dreadlocks that go down to his knees…. They didn’t do anything too exciting but they put on a good show.

Lamb of God was up next. I’m really less familiar with Lamb of God than I am Shadows Fall and Slipknot. They on my todo list of music to check out, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I though they started off just kind of fast and heavy for their first few songs (and therefore generic). I thought the set got better as it went on though and they played for about as long as Shadows Fall did.

One interesting thing is how fast everything went….the big concerts I’ve been to have always had like 30+ minutes in between acts. The first two acts were done in just over an hour here (helped by Sworn Enemy’s short set). I think by about an hour later all of the opening acts were done….they only put like 10- 15 minutes between them. Slipknot took a little bit longer because they had some extra setup to do, but I still bet it was only maybe 20 minutes…that was all good, I hate waiting.

Slipknot put on a great performance. They setup behind a white curtain and projected some weird video footage of themselves onto it in the meantime. When the set started, the curtain was still up and they played a recording of Prelude 3.0.as full volume. This went on for a few minutes and I thought for sure someone would announce “I’m sorry, but Slipknot couldn’t make it. Please enjoy their latest album and this white curtain”… The eventually showed up on stage as event by their silhouettes on the curtain and when they started playing for real the just dropped the curtain at the same time so you’d be assailed by both a visual and auditory experience. It’s a cool idea for sure. I saw Rob zombie do essentially the same thing on in the dark years ago.. He did it better but this was still great. Their stage itself was a large setup with raised areas on either side in the back for the DJ’s (I presume that’s what they are…..one wears a hellraiser type mask and the other a skull….if you’re not familiar with Slipknot, there are 9 people in this band and they always wear masks). Underneath these raised areas they projected images. The main drummer was in the center but on almost floor level (or the stage). The other two drum sets were set in either corner to the front. The kicker is that Two of the drum sets were on lifts. The one in front would go up to about 8 feet in the air and spin around. The one in the center probably went up to more like 20 feet and also spun. As we found out, the platform would also tilt 90 degrees. In the middle of the set, he went into a drum solo and the platform started raising. When he got to the top, the platform slowly tilted forward 90 degrees so he ended up facing straight down at the stage. Then it started spinning…..yeah, he was strapped into a chair ….it’s was pretty cool. They were down 1.5 drummers here as well. One of them had a family emergency and the other was on crutches because apparently he broke his leg (though he didn’t look TOO bad…maybe it was more of a sprained ankle….then again I’ve never broken my leg so I’m not sure how easy it would or wouldn’t be to get around) jumping off a platform. He was still running around and drumming and stuff though. The drummer that was missing had his mask mounted on his drums (the ones in front that rose up) and the guy in the skull mask seemed to enjoy laying and or walking around on the drums as they rose into the air.
They also had a round screen suspended above them that they projected various images onto and during vermilion part 2 angled so it was easier to see and they put up a video. Thinking back on it, no one used any pyro at all. During Spit It Out they had everyone get down on the floor and then jump up on cue. Apparently they regularly do this…..it’s really very effective at getting the entire floor to at least briefly jump around and mosh. I had never realized before, but there is a clanging sound in Duality that is actually made by hitting a bat against an empty beer keg….(both the front drum sets had kegs mounted along side the drums…..they were indeed mic’d! They came out for an encore of 3 songs including Wait and Bleed where the vocals seemed to go out for part of the song.

Overall it was a great show. Nate thought that Lamb of God put on the best performance but I’d vote for Slipknot without a doubt. It’s always hard to say though, because I think it’s easy to get into if you’re familiar with the music. I know about half of Slipknot’s songs and I suppose what comes to most of Shadows Fall’s, but not so much Lamb of God.

Also, I wore earplugs throughout most of the show. It worked out pretty well. I was afraid that they’d drown out the high tones too much, but it wasn’t bad. The experience isn’t quite the same, but they worked more or less like I thought they would and allowed me to actually hear the music (different instruments and such) much better than I otherwise would have been able to. If I hadn’t had had them, my ears would have overloaded and it would have been mostly a lot of noise… I didn’t end up with a headache at all (though my neck is sore… ) and the unusual ringing today is minimal. I felt kind of stupid doing it, but I kind of didn’t care as well. On the upside to my ego, I saw one other person also wearning them.

We had a nice time trying to remember what door to exit through to get to the parking grange and then when we got there it was so packed that we just sat in the car for like 15 minutes before we even tried to move. Then we drove around downtown Detroit for a while trying to find the highway. Like I said, there are a lot of nice buildings down there and we even ended up on some unlit side streets. By unlit I mean the street lights weren’t on. Maybe they’re trying to save money…

I eventually got home. Milenka said I made good time, which makes sense with all that traffic at 2:00am…. I had a great time overall.