cooltunes

I attended the Unholy Alliance Tour yesterday in San Jose at the HP Pavillion, the first of many concerts this summer that I will be attending. The line-up was Slayer, Lamb of God, Mastodon, Children of Bodom, and Thine Eyes Bleed. I missed Thine Eyes Bleed due to traffic and parking, but I didn’t really mind. For some reason Slayer concerts always seem to start on time, and this always surprises me (maybe that is just because all my other concerts are at The Pound, which is notorious for late starts). So here are my thoughts on the rest of the bands:

Children of Bodom was the first band I saw play. I don’t really like their style of music, but they seemed to have quite a few hardcore fans at the show, and it’s always cool when talented bands from Europe make their way over to play here. They had one song in the middle that was pretty good, the rest I thought were just OK, but the crowd was pretty into them.

Mastodon came on next, and they were pretty entertaining. Apparently they don’t tune their guitars very low, but somehow they manage to get a very bassy, extremely HEAVY sound. Their drumming was alot more interesting than Children of Bodom’s, and although I wasn’t really familiar with their material at all, they put on a crushingly good live show. I was right next to the pit and people were going nuts; at one point a guy with blood running down his face pushed his way out of the pit and through the crowd, so I guess the moshing got pretty violent. Also from my vantage point one of the guitarists looked alot like Will Ferrell, so that was somewhat amusing.

Next up was Lamb of God. Again I wasn’t familiar with their stuff, but pretty much the entire rest of the crowd was I guess, and so the floor was packed full when they started playing. Their style didn’t keep my attention as well as Mastodon, and I eventually got bored and wandered out to concessions to grab a snack (and get ripped off). For some reason the event staff wasn’t letting people back onto the floor, I guess it was crowded to the point of being dangerous or something, so I ended up missing the remainder of Lamb of God’s set, which didn’t really bother me that much.

I managed to get back down to the floor in time for Slayer, and was pretty close to the stage when they started. As soon as they started playing, people began pushing from all directions and everyone was mashed shoulder-to-shoulder for the first couple songs, and going crazy headbanging etc. One thing about Slayer shows - there are alot more big sweaty shirtless guys in the audience than at most shows I go to, and so it was hard not to get other peoples’ sweat rubbed all over you during Slayer’s set. After a few songs things calmed down, and the audience didn’t go nuts again until Slayer played some classics like Raining Blood. Saw a guy with his nose bleeding wandering away from the floor. Slayer put on an entertaining show as usual, but I think I somewhat spoiled it for myself by reading some reviews of the show online that included the setlist and descriptions of some of the theatrics. I will have to remember not to do that next time…