Posted on: October 8, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 2

Unearth, Dillenger Escape Plan and Slipknot – October 16th, 2005 @ The House of Blues, Cleveland OH
By: Nick Papadimoulis

Sunday night, October 16 House of Blues…Slipknot, Unearth and Dillinger Escape Plan. One Hell of a night, compared to any other ordinary Sunday night filled with the routine of The Simpsons, American Dad and Family Guy. With Dillinger escape Plan’s outlandish stage antics, Unearth’s non stop aggression and Slipknot, well, just being Slipknot every time they play, besides the overpriced ticket prices I would have to say it was a worth while time.

The doors opened at Eight O’clock P.M. Shortly afterward Dillinger Escape Plan started the night off with chaos, confusion and madness. Although, I thought there sound was a little rocky at first (possibly due poor mixing from the soundman), as does happen sometime for the first act of a show, it did improve. The majority of the crowd, seeming to be mostly Slipknot fans, did not seem to be to into Dillinger, possibly because their unique, out-of-the-ordinary, hardcore approach might have clashed with Slipknot’s love ‘em or hate ‘em kind of music. Then again, it might have still just been early in the night. As far as performances go, I thought of theirs’ to be practically flawless with their chaotic style, stage presence and musical performance, and nothing could have toped off their show better than when the lead singer whipped out his dick on stage (not that I am gay). I mean, I am sure them something could have toped it off better, but it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Even though their set was not the longest, about 35-40 minutes, it was quite pleased with their performance. Overall they put on a great show that any metalhead should appreciate, even if their music does not fulfill ones personal tastes. D.E.P. makes a tough act to follow, but not at task that Unearth can not handle.

Unearth. Their name describes it all; their performance, their aggression and there music. If you like metal, you WILL like Unearth. Their Metal-Core style, mixed with their finely tuned musicianship and non-stop physical aggression on stage, left the entire crowd more than satisfied. Unearth should come up with their own exercise video. These guys have to burn at least 50,000 calories after each show, from all of the jumping around that they do. I have no idea how it would be even possible for them to move their necks or even turn their heads the slightest the next day due to all of the hair flying, head-banging that they got going on, which brings me to my next point. The pit: sweat drenched hairy metal heads, elbows flying and every man for himself. Whether it was a foot coming at your face from crowd surfers, heads shoulders knees and toes from smash dancers or just the constant pushing and shoving from other fellow piters, the fact of the matter is, if you weren’t on the prowl, you were most likely knocked on your ass.

One of the things that boggles my mind the most is how well Unearth’s members play when they are doing all that crazy movement that they do. I mean, these guys would be climbing on, jumping off of like six to ten foot speaker cabinets while never missing a beat in the middle of a song. Their breakdowns in the songs with all of that synchronized off, but on beat double base on top of guitar chunking that matched every down beat of the double bass, mixed with harmonized guitar fills were all done with precise presion. The whole entire band was a spectacle to watch. True Rock Stars, especially Ken Susi (Guitar). This guy would be in the middle of a song and be bonging a beer while playing and whipping his guitar over his shoulder and having it do a 360 all the way around his body, now that’s got Rock Star written all over it. The coolest visual of their whole show was when Unearth members Buz McGrath (guitar), Ken Susi (Guitar) and John “Slo” Maggard (Guitar) formed a guitar triangle and played each others instruments in the middle of a breakdown. How it worked was they stood in sort of a triangle, one would reach across and do trills on the others guitar, so the each had their hand on another members axe. Very, very cool to watch.

Although their performance was amazing I would have to say there were a few downfalls. The first being their set time. Unearth was onstage for about 35 minutes, give or take a few. I am not saying that it was their fault, but it was a bit disappointing. Another being their sound, which was a bit to distorted for my taste, only because I felt that it took away from a big aspect of their music, which was all of the great guitar harmonized riffs that don’t come out as clear as they do on the CDs, which I think was due to the overuse of distortion and gain. My final complaint would be that they didn’t say the name of any of their songs or say a little bit about them before they would play them, which I think is nice sometimes.

Overall their performance was F-ing awesome. Unearths puts their heart into their energetic shows, as well as they show love to all of their fans. Their shows demand the respect of the peers which they very well deserve and I believe have earned. Definitely a band that I would recommend to any type of metal fan.

At around 10:30 all Hell broke loose. This concert being manly a Slipknot show, with them as the headlining act, the place went nuts. No disrespect to the other two bands that played that night, but Slipknot stole the show. I was never a huge fan of Slipknot until I saw them play live. They put on some of the craziest shows that I have ever seen. Even though guitarist Jim Root was M.I.A. they still rocked the House. The played for about a little over an hour and also did a couple of encore songs. They mixed their show up by playing stuff from all of their albums, communicated with the audience and even got the crowd to do a pretty nasty circle pit, yes, a circle pit in the House of Blues. No matter if you are a fan or not you will enjoy a Slipknot concert.

Overall it was a pretty good night. The ticket prices were rather overpriced and I might have been kind of salty if I had to pay $55 dollars for about two and half hours of music. Then again it was D.E.P., Unearth and Slipknot at the House of Blues, which was sweet because the House of Blues isn’t exactly a huge arena type place. The drinks were pretty expensive too, I mean $55 a ticket and like $4.25 a friggin beer!! F-in A, come on now! Other than all that, kick ass time.

[Nick]

2 People reacted on this

  1. this concert was sick as…
    Frigg and I were there with our piece of wood!!!

    Lakhannaporn

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