so, i decided to go to the first ever SOTU tour in MA today. it was really on an impulse. i had to work until 1, and by the time i got there it was about 3. man, what a long day. i missed alot of early bands, bands i would have liked to have seen
ill try to give a slight rundown on the bands:

bands on the bill, but for other dates:

FEAR BEFORE THE MARCH OF FLAMES (only playing 7/5 - 7/13 & 7/30 - 7/31)
BLACK DAHLIA MURDER (only playing 6/28)
MADBALL (only playing 6/29 7/29)
TERROR (only playing 7/15 - 7/31)
HIGH ON FIRE (only playing 6/26 - 7/31)

bands i didnt see:

NORA (only playing 6/25)
*actually, didnt show up

FULL BLOWN CHAOS
*who?

THE RED CHORD (only playing 6/25 - 7/4)
*not really into them anyways

ALL THAT REMAINS
*one of the bands i really wanted to see. eh, ill see them some other time.

A LIFE ONCE LOST
*who?

DEVIL DRIVER
*fuck dez. DD can eat my ass

EVERY TIME I DIE
*not into them anyways

THROWDOWN
*i really wanted to see these guys too. i heard they were awesome tonight

bands i did see:

NORMA JEAN
* i only like one song of theirs. fortunately, i walked into the arena just as it was starting

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD
*eh, they were alright. for most of their performance though, i was standing in line to meet unearth.

GWAT
*WOW. that is all i had to say. unexplainable. i didnt think id give 2 shits about these guys. afterall, i only know about them because of beavis and butthead. but, when they came on the stage, i was captivated until they left. the greatest performance, theatrically, i have ever witnessed from a band. i was shocked and entertained. the outfits? man, how awesome. they looked like linebackers on satan's football team. they killed a nazi pope, then they gutted george bush, then they had a medievel sword fight against an oversized snail, that when decapitated, sprayed the crowd with fake blood for about 3 minutes. then they fought a mech robot (which was hilarious) and finally chopped its arms off, only to give them another reason to spray the crowd again. plus they had a turret gun spraying the crowd the whole time too. everyone was covered and loving it. the music was actually good too. i was thorouhgly surprised. best memory from the show. should have headlined, but if that happened, i probably would have left to avoid traffic, and had never got to see them.


OPETH
*followed gwar, and how do you do that and e successgul. they were good, but not my type of band. relaxing and heavy somehow. talented guys, but kind of boring, especially after gwar. they had their set shortened, i hear, but their songs are fucking long anyways, so 4 songs from them is equal to about 7 or 8 of an average band timewise. the lights were left on for their set too, which must have pissed them off.

POISON THE WELL
*eh, every song sounded the same. i was bored for most of the show until the guitarist, who was strangley running around the stage while playing, as if to avoid bees, slipped and fell on his face, haha. but bizzarely, later, the singer glared him down, and then just spit the biggest loogy right in his eye and flinched his chest at him rigth after as if to say "what are you going to do about it". the guitarist stopped playing for a second, wiped it off, and resumed. what a pussy, i would have decked him with my axe. i dont know what it was all about, it seemed personal, and definitely not part of the act.

CHIMAIRA
* finally, im not a chimmy virgin anymore. the main reason i went, and they were as good as i had hoped. they played pure hatred, severed, nothing remains, inside the horror, the dehumanizing process, and power trip...in that order. severed is my least liked chimaira song, and it owned live. everything sounded splendid, and the new songs were awesome too. im becoming more and more a believer that the new cd is going to be a masterpiece. chimaira played inside the horror, adn it was the frst time ive heard it anywhere, simpy put, it has the best end to a chimaira song ever. overall, it was an interesting song and heavy throughout. it started off sounding like a classic metal song, which then went to thrash, and ended with pounding bass drops reapeatedly, with a nice thumping drum beat, and a nice guitar riff, blended in with a pretty nifty solo. it totalled to about one minute of instrumental at the en or something like that. it was a really good song, usually, i have a hard time getting an impression of a new song live, so i cant wait to hear it on disc. my memory of it might be skewed a tad, but i think i was right on. overall, one of the best sets ive seen from a band

FROM AUTUMN TO ASHES
*i didnt like these guys before. i didnt know it was them when they came on stage, and was really into their set. it wasnt until they played their last song 'the after dinner payback' that i realized it was FATA. i was thinking "i dont like these guys??? i should listen to them again." good set

CLUTCH
*boooooooring

UNEARTH
*real heavy set. real good performance. i wasnt blown away, but it was good. i met them too, and had a chat with ken, the guitarist. he met my sister the day before, so i had something to talk to him about. he was a real nice dude, and probably the most talkative out of the band. cool guys, i got their autographs too.

LAMB OF GOD
*now, i liked LoG before i saw them. i cant tell you how much more respect i give them now, after witnessing their show. awesome. it was absolutely right in your face, perfect cd sound live. i mean, awesome stuff. randy blythe proved himself tonight, and im sure he will continue to do so for the remainder of the tour, as one of the best frontman in metal. he commanded the crowd to a tee, and was flawless, energetic, powerful.



as you can tell, i had a great time. im so glad i chose to go, as far as im concerened, the $30 admission was covered as soon as gwar was done. and i had the rest of the night ahead of me. i had to sit through some boring parts to get to the good bands, but it was worth it. there wasnt many people there, or not as many as id expected. i was there for about 8 hours, and sat for the last 4, which was fine. i got seats pretty much right next to the stage, to its left, and easily had the best view in the house to see chimiara, and everyone else, really. i like getting into the shows, and pitting and stuff, but once in a while, you gotta just sit back and take in a bands performance.

Hell ya kaos!
Nice review..I was kind of wanting to watch DD but they are kind of too iron maidenish for me...So I need to just get there for Gwar, cause it seems they start off the real bands. I have seen Clutch a lot and I don't really know how they got on the ticket, they just don't fit the bill, unless they play Binge & Purge which I have yet to see them do. ahh I can't wait for Chimaira....I was lookin around the net for some live footage of them but couldn't find any, but I did find their first CD which is badass, see my other post. LoG , I got one of their Live CD's and yes it sounds just like the fuckin CD, how do they do it? I have no idea....
I can't wait for July 10th....

kaos do you remember if LoG played Black Label?
That song will kick so much ass live.

my man, of course they did. its what they brought the house down with as their last song.

To someone who seems to know whats up in metal....kaostik. yes Lamb of God frontman is one of the best singer ever. But, Dez of devildriver deserves the same resect. Although his lyrics are evil at times...i mean come on..devildriver?....lol..i'm not evil but to not like him for that...you need to say so cuz vocally he is the man...one of the greatest performers you will witness live. In addition, SYL frontman is great live and an awesome band. cool new song from SYL--"Love" Basically, tell us, the bloodsimple community why you don't like dez...that was the purpose of this message...and to bust your balls a bit....kickass kao..great stuff you put down...keep it up...but do tell the dez story
OGINYAFACE!.....

haha, this bloodsimple communuty? all what, 4 of us? but no, ive never said anything about knowing whats up in metal. i just enjoy good music, like to keep updated on new shit, and it all happens to be metal, whatever area of the genre it fits into. but, alright. its not the 'evil' lyrics that dissuade me from enjoying dez, i like a little evilness, but dez is an arrogant douche. i hate arrogance, and he has treated people like shit, like, say, rayna foss-rose, the old bassist of coal chamber. plus, maybe devildrivers lyrics ar 'evil' but from the coal chamber days, they were just terrible. and his vocals sound like he's got a loogy stuck in his throat. im not overly impressed by his abilities, and couldnt give 2 shits about anything he works on. i guess there is just something about him i completely dislike. i have 3 coal chamber discs, and i always waited for him to finally write something good, because thats all that was left behind. the music was always good, it was dez that made coal chamber suck. this is, ofcourse, all my own opinion. and im only going into such detail because you asked. otherwise, id say nothing about him, and move on. i dont know the guy, so who knows, maybe he's cool, all i know is im all set with deveildriver.

right on....i like reading your opinions as im sure others do also..everyone knows what they are talkin about in metal by the way..well not everyone..Metal wouldnt be metal if your opinion was wrong..sometimes a person can be totally wrong, not sayin you are,but if someone would say that pantera is not the best band ever, their opinion would obviously be wrong...tks for your opinion on Dez...kickass
RIP DIMEBAG!

Pantera is the best METAL band. But there are many others on the list. Needless to say some people don't see it that way. Now I know different people have different tastes (and that's perfectly fine), but just in a musical sense look how much Pantera has done for the metal industry. If you go out and ask anyone in any metal band (popular or unpopular)what thier inspiration is, I bet Pantera would be on that list. Bottom line Pantera=Legendary. Why these guys aren't given enough credit I don't know. RIP Dime.

cool man. glad you dont mind my opinion OG. and that is all it is. i hope i didnt ruin dez for ou, not my intention, lol.

inside the horror is good, but best chimaira song? hardly.

and clutch rules.

who cares about dez?

i didnt say best chimaira song, is said best ending to a chimaira song. i like the outro of it.

Off of the new album "Left for Dead" and "Inside the Horror" are the standout tracks. Btw, anyone who isn't familar w/ this band need to get familar. This release is way different than the last album. This cd is definitely worth the money.

haha about poison the well, they're so close to breaking up

the solo for inside the horror rules everything

dude, zach, you from the older chimmy boards? uhh, mordeci or something.

I had my kids this weekend so I had to wait for their mother to pick them up before I could get out to the show. She finally came around 3 and so then I headed to my friends place and met up with everyone and drank a few beers and then we finally made it around 5, Gwar was doin their soundcheck grabbed a beer and watched the show....here is the rundown from Gwar on.

Gwar
2 words...Awesome show...if you haven't seen them you need to. They must have done their research on good ole T-Town because he said some shit about the Tulsa Race Riots.

Poison the Well
Not bad, but not that great either...they showed some energy up on stage but not much energy in the crowd. Not that heavy of a band

Unearth
They were pretty good, real fuckin heavy.

Opeth
Too much 'clean' music. Don't know any of their music but shit when you are playin for a thousand people you gotta play some fuckin hard shit, some stuff that's moshable, which they didn't

Clutch
I don't think this is the right place for Clutch to perform. They stick out like a sore thumb with their type of music at a venue like this. I like Clutch, although I only recognized Big News 1 & 2, I have seen them many times, they kind of reminded me of a hippie jam band up there. So no there were no pits, lol.

Chimaira
Chimaira stole the fuckin show, my friend hasn't really listened to them and he thought the same. Their set was only 30 fuckin minutes though. They played 'Nothing Remains' & 'Save Ourselves' off of their yet to be released cd. Not really much of a pit, I didn't really understand it, seemed like there were only a few of us that knew the songs and stuff.

Lamb of God
LoG was amazing, you should have seen the setup they had...jeez 15 cabinets per guitarist, kind of overkill if you ask me, only like 4 of each was mic'd. Bass had 8 cab's, lol.
Awesome lighting effects.They had this goliath of a security guard up there, reminded me of Peter Steele (Type O Negative) but with glasses, he was wearing some kind of Special Forces looking vest and gloves, but the guys in the band kept talkin to him so I guess he is their personal security guard, that kind of ruined my perception of them. Seemed like a bunch of pussies up there afraid of someone gettin up on stage and touching them. The dude clotheslined one little kid that was running and jumped off stage...what an ass. There was a big pit but not as rough as I would have liked, seemed too big of a pit with too few people. Was just like running around in a circle and 'bumpin' into a few people here an there. The pit at the Bloodsimple show in Denver was my last experience so I guess I had too big of expectations.

awesome man. that was about the same time i had shown up. i saw one or two other bands before gwar, but i was too busy walking around to enjoy them, that gwar became the first band i wathced. i agree on about 90% of what you said. it was pretty similar to the boston show, it sounds like. except LoG's crowd in MA was pretty brutal in the pits. glad you had a good time man!

was the LoG security dude out there on your show too?

i dont remember seeing him. i think that would stand out, im pretty sure he wasnt. maybe something happened during the tour that made him neccessary for LoG.

btw, i thought you were a young kid, lol. i didnt know you had kids and shit, you old man