Ahh yes. The Palladium. Where good cheer, old-fashioned respect for the arts, and genuine customer service flows like the beer they overcharge for. NOT!!!!! If ever there were a valid excuse for true ROAD RAGE after attending a concert, I would say the Palladium would have to be the thing. Being a member of the ‘press’ or the ‘media’, as they call it, becomes incredibly difficult (and nearly impossible to do your job) when you are forced to deal with a staff like that of the Palladium.
But alas, that is not what you’re here for now, is it? You want to hear about the BANDS! And what good is UnEarthed.com if not to be thee resource that gives its readers what they desire? Onward…
The Deadlights: Never having seen or heard this band before gave me the chance to take in something fresh. The Deadlights were glad to be home, and they reiterated that fact several times throughout the power-packed set. There didn’t seem to be any difficulty for whipping the anxious audience into shape, and the songs were reminiscent of a more upbeat Sepultura sound. The band has a very polished stage presence that the crowd fed off of and responded well to. The Deadlights did a nice job of bringing the crowd to a simmer.
Full Devil Jacket: This 5-piece from down South took the stage and held on with a steel grip. I can’t say enough good things about Full Devil Jacket. Josh Brown (vocals ) was totally getting down on that stage, as well as the rest of the band. Jonathan Montoya (guitar and resident trouble maker – see Type O Negative) was in a complete rock n’ roll trance throughout the entire set. This is one band that just loses themselves to the music. They’ve got a new CD called ‘A Wax Box To Put Your Frankenstein Heads In’ (think you can remember that?) which comes out in a couple of weeks. Several killer tracks from the upcoming release were performed with effortless style. They were phenomenal.
Coal Chamber: I really want to like Coal Chamber. Somehow though, the last couple of shows I’ve seen were just….missing something. Come to think of it, the last couple of shows were missing Rayna (bass) but now that she’s back – that can’t be it. It’s just something I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s that Dez (vocals) sounds so completely different live than he does on the CDs. Maybe it’s the fact that I like the old Coal Chamber better than the new version. Maybe it’s because they insist on doing the ‘spookycore’ thing – when they aren’t very spooky at all. I got the most pleasure out of Coal Chamber’s performance when they opened, just as they always do, with “The roooof, the roooof, the rooooof is on fiiiiire!” and then when they finally bashed their way into ‘Big Truck‘, but see, that’s the OLD stuff again. Maybe the new CD ‘Chamber Music‘ is just simply too sophisticated for Coal Chamber and for me. They had 50 minutes to blow our minds. I wish I could say that was what happened. Really, I do.
Type O Negative: Easily the best performance of the night. Please try to believe me when I tell you that I am not saying this because I am the hugest Type O Negative fan on the face of this Earth. I am saying this because I speak the truth. First of all, before the set even began, the Type O Negative crew members (otherwise known as the Casket Crew) decided that they were going to prevent Jonathan Montoya of Full Devil Jacket from launching any of his antics on the band this time. If you had read my interview with Jon, you would know as well as I did, that Jonathan had earned this punishment, as he had been staging pranks and jokes throughout the tour and would spring them on the band during their nightly performances. I guess they had finally had enough. The crew proceeded to remove Jonathan’s pants and then handcuffed him by one wrist to drummer Johnny Kelly’s drum riser for the entire length of the set. It was brilliant and funny and , to tell you the truth, Type O Negative played such an incredible show, there were times I forgot Jon was even there.
Type O Negative dusted off some classic songs from ‘Origin of the Feces’, ‘Slow, Deep and Hard’, and most notably, ‘Bloody Kisses’. They are never short on material, and of course included songs from the more recent releases, ‘October Rust’ and the doom-laden, yet gorgeous and intensely personal ‘World Coming Down’ as well. My personal highlights were the return of ‘Too Late: Frozen‘ complete with snow falling from all directions, the always brutal ‘Jackhammer Rape‘ and the unrelentingly epic ‘World Coming Down’. The only one I was desperately hoping for, and didn’t get, was the Type O version of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe‘ – entitled ‘Hey Pete‘. Oh well, maybe I’ll just play the CD.
This band is going to forever remain etched in my mind, my memories, and my veins. I wonder what my blood type is? I’ll have to check into that.
Lesa Pence
An extra large ‘thank you’ goes to Maria from Roadrunner for her undying patience and incredible sense of humor. She gets big time props for getting through the night without murdering someone.
