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NEW ENGLAND METAL AND HARDCORE FESTIVAL 2003 DAY 1 Damn, what a great two day event! My friend Nate, his girlfriend Becky, and my roomate Josh all arrived around 2:00pm (an hour before showtime) only to have to wait in line! So for the next hour, I stood in the fucking cold afternoon weather wearing a t-shirt, pants, and a jean jacket (with the obligatory patches of course!). While standing outside talking with my friends attending the show with me, and a few guys I met in line, I noticed how many different band shirts there were! I was totally expecting this concert to have a primarily hardcore/metalcore fanbase, but was I fucking wrong! I would say the majority of the fans were wearing true metal shirts, which consisted of mostly bands that were not at the event (Overkill, Dark Angel, Sonata Arctica, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Dark Funeral, Emperor, Burzum, Exodus, etc...)! In my experience living my life as a metalhead, I have seen very few metalheads, and befriended even less (most of my friends are into metal, but I converted alot of them). Anyways, I digress...it was just really nice to see and chat with others in a surrounding that was so fucking kickass. So finally we made it through the doors of the concert and were instantly attacked by people handing out flyers and freebie samplers from the bands playing that night. On account of us standing in line for so long, the first band had already started playing on the second stage, so we went upstairs to watch them. Once upstairs we caught the tail end of what I think was Held Under, who sounded to be decent death. Next, following our itinerary we headed downstairs to the main stage to hear the melodic death rumblings of Beyond the Embrace. What a great way to start out the evening! Next up on the same stage was Locked in a Vacancy. These guys are obviously an accomplished hardcore band with some decent metal chops behind their sound. For the small crowd at the time, these guys did a good job getting them fired up. I like hardcore enough to allow myself to do some nodding to them (I also wanted to save my energy for the next fucking 9 hours!). Following Locked in a Vacancy was A Life Once Lost, who I was very interested in seeing. I have alot of their music, and I was looking forward to hearing what this original sounding band was going to bring to us live. With the intensity of Dillinger Escape Plan, and high pitched growling like I have never heard in a metalcore band, these guys brought a great sound to the stage. Unfortunately, the growling that is so apparent in their recordings, was not as present as I ahd hoped for. I don't know if it was the Palladium sound system (more on this later), or the actual vocalist, A Life Once Lost turned into an exceptional sounding metalcore band with average vocals. Next up also on the Main Stage directly after A Life Once Lost was the Doom metal outfit with death vocals, November's Doom. Boy can the big man Paul Kuhr sing! He has mighty growling skills as well as a very melodic voice that adds so much atmosphere to the already doomy instrumental portion of the band. This was my first experience with this band, and I was VERY impressed. Later on during the concert when I explored the merchandise stands, I purchased November's Doom - The Knowing, (as well as Nightingale - Alive Again, which have both turned out to be exceptional albums) After a brief 10 minute wait to allow bands to change and get set up, we heard yet another amazing band, just this time from Noctuary. These guys were almost as equally impressive as November's Doom (and this is definitely not on account of their musical abilities) with their crunching black metal riffs. I really enjoyed their black metal numbers, and then from out of nowhere, they blast out an Aces High cover (which I read today on their website, this was their last time playing it live)! I must say, that they did an excellent job going from the brutality of their black metal numbers, to a straight up heavy metal tune like Aces High. These guys were great. DINNER BREAK! After dinner we hit the second stage to see the ending of what I think was Found Dead Hanging, who sounded pretty fast. However, what we were really waiting for was the arrival of the spludge playin, pot smokin members of Bongzilla to take the stage, and damn they didn't disappoint! I find Bongzilla to be rather boring on disc, but they were very heavy live. They sound like "extreme blues" as I heard somebody in the audience say, because they chug along at the pace of blues, but they are so damn heavy! They were definitely worth seeing. Up next after Bongzilla was Premonitions of War which was great grindcore. After Premonitions, we headed back down to the main stage to see the last of Diecast. Now, before I go on I must stress I am not a big fan of Diecast in the least. I can basically tolerate their music, but holy shit can they get a crowd going! Up until that point, they were the liveliest band, by far! And to top it all off, to usher off Diecast's vocalist (which he kept talking about, because I guess they are getting a new guy), they did a cover of "Raining Blood" and what a fucking bad ass cover! I found myself headbanging to this sucker! This wasn't some lame non-techical cover either, they did most of the song, including the technical parts of it which raised my level of respect for Diecast dramatically. These boys can sure as hell play! Following Diecast was the first of the major bands: Lacuna Coil. I like their recorded work, and this stuff was no different. I found myself getting into the melodies of the female vocals, and the harsh male vocals fit right in. These guys played almost flawlessly. If I was more knowledgeable of their music, I could give a better judgement on the band, but from a casual listener, they were great. Next up, was the daddy of all bands for this evening...NEVERMORE! What can I say...for those who were there, they will understand. These guys fucking brought the place down! With Warrel's constant requests for a moshing frenzy, headbanging, and devil horns, the crowd was in a fucking frenzy! Crowd surfing landed several lucky fans onstage with Warrel, and Warrel was more than receptive! He let them sing parts of the song, hug him, hell he even picked up a girl and swung her around! You could easily tell that Nevermore were heaving a great fucking time there, with the music and the fans, because they were really into their music. Warrel even mentioned that playing Worcester is the best place he plays, because its the msot fun, but who the fuck knows. At one point Warrel said, while playing with his leather wristbands, "You guys know why I am wearing these?! I had to dig out my entire closet and dust them off for one reason, because MTV brought back the fucking Headbanger's Ball!" This got a pretty big response from the crowd. Nevermore during the concert, played 4 new songs from their upcoming album (I am not sure which ones, but if you go to their forum, there is some discussion going on about the subject). At the end, Warrel had well over 20 people on stage too, who he invited on! He was walking around hugging them, and letting them scream lyrics...it was a great ending to a great act. After Nevermore, Killswitch Engage first, and then Shadows Fall hit the stage doing what they do best. The crowds got really crazy with these guys as well. Once Opeth hit the stage, my friends and I were fucking wiped out. We managed to get through some songs from them, and then we had to leave. Top 5 Bands for Friday- 1. Nevermore The Rest I Saw - 1. Noctuary Bands I missed but I wanted to see: DRI (DAMNIT SONUVA WHORE!!!!!)
We got to the Palladium about a half an hour late, but that didn't bother us much, we didn't miss much of the action. (NOTE: There was alot of fucking bands this day, so I am only going to summerize the stand out performances) Saturday features alot of great death metal and metalcore bands. I wont get into them, but some that stood out were Goatwhore, Mastodon, Harakiri, and Uphill Battle. Above all the other death metal bands (except for you know who) was fucking Kataklysm. I have heard some of their stuff, but I didn't think of them as being anything but average death metal. When I heard them play live though....HOLY FUCKING SHIT! This was, by far, the greatest act out of all of them physically, because anyone who was near the band was either in a fucking pit, or around the fucking pit guarding your ass at all times. I practically broke my neck during this set from the constant headbanging! And add in the fact that it was on the second stage made it better physically, because the second stage is located in a smaller room, where you are packed in. Strapping Young Lad also were also really great live! Devin is a funny as mother fucker. He was constantly spouting off one liners that had the crowd laughing their asses off. For anyone who has seen SYL live, you can probably relate to what I am telling you. But anyway, they really did a good job playing, and I was pleased that they focused more on their death tunes, rather than their industrial enfused tunes. They were really together with their act too, the entire band; from their music to their actual physical movements as a unit. Lamb of God was pretty damn brutal, and was probably the best at whipping the crowd into a frenzy, especially with the "wall of death" as vocalist Randy Blythe put it. Infact, Randy had to jump down off the stage and physically show the crowd how to do it. For those not familiar with the process, the crowd is split up into two sections, and when the music starts, both sides rush each other. It was visually pretty fucking insane accompanied by pretty fucking extreme metal. And then: the band of all bands at this festival...SUFFOCATION!!!! These guys kicked ultimate fucking ass. From what I know, this is their first concert back together, and they really wailed. The lead singer professed how good it was to be back after 5 years of inactivity and expressed that he didn't know what he was thinking not playing during that time! During the set he brought out his young daughter on stage who helped him throw out flyers and sample discs. He seemed like a really cool guy, who just happens to SLAY ON VOCALS! Unfortunately, Suffocation had a short set, and really wanted to play more, but the powers that be backstage said they couldn't, and started taking down their set while they were still onstage. The crowd was chanting "One More Song!", and as much as the band wanted to play more, they weren't allowed to. It really sucked they couldn't play more. However, the Haunted came out next. At this point, myself and my friends were really fucking tired. We stood through The Haunted, but really didn't fully absorb the songs, just because we were so physically drained. We mutually decided to leave after The Haunted set (which, despite my interest, was indeed good). I wanted to see Meshuggah and Superjoint as I have never seen them live before, but hey, when the body says you're done...you're done. Top 5 Bands for Saturday - 1. Suffocation!!!! The Rest I Saw - 1. Mastodon Bands I wanted to see: Unearth
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