There comes an odd time in a man's life where he is old, yet has to go to a package show sponsored by an energy drink company to see some metal. This is that time. A bunch of guys were buying tickets a while ago and I bought in, just in time for Watt to book a show in town on the same night. This was a severe bummer, even moreso than having to pay a million bucks to No Fear to see Lamb Of God.As good as the bill was, I was somewhat disconcerted to pop over to the No Fear website and find they were running a promotion to find the hottest No Fear MILF for Mother's Day. That is a Freudian nightmare if ever I saw one, but my concern soon moved to how I was going to see Municipal Waste, yet avoid most of the rest of the set. This really should have been called the walking wounded tour, as it was plagued with all sorts of misfortune for the bands on the bill. Municipal Waste got about 15 minutes for a set, God Forbid was down a guitarist after some Oasis-esque internal turmoil and Alexi for Children Of Bodom 'fell out of his bunk' wink*wink*, breaking his shoulder. COB eventually ended up scrapping the show this night; a bummer as I was hoping to put my ambivalence about them in one camp or the other.
The team rolled in at the end of the God Forbid set. It was nice to see Doc, even though we missed the GF set. Beers were acquired and we staked out some real estate for the As I Lay Dying set. I was pretty sure that AILD were not especially good and this set more than reinforced that for me. They seemed to be dealing with diminished PA privileges, which was more than fine for me as they were Grade A Bor-ing.
The reason for the season was up next, that being RVA metal wunderkinds Lamb Of God. I like their records, and think that Morgan and Adler are the new Downing and Tipton but had never consciously went to check them out. They have definitely mastered the big crowd phenomenon, Randy shouted out all the other bands and some NYC locals like he was running for office, and there was definitely a lot of big room production with giant drums risers, rock ramps and the like. Morgan and Adler definitely earned their guitar hero rep, playing their asses off regardless of whether they were heavy or clean. The crowd went ape-shit for the duration, packing in like sardines and spawning various pits starting at the stage that stretched all the way back to the girl pit at the back bar, where I ended up after being bulldozed halfway to the back in the middle of the first song. Had I remembered that Watt was playing, I probably would have bailed but I stuck around and pretty much enjoyed myself. It wasn't a situation like the Opeth shows last year where I wanted to listen to nothing but them afterward, but props are definitely due. Lamb Of God are definitely Pure American Metal.
\m/
R
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