Meshuggah!

Tonight, the dark, reptilian side comes out and enjoys the blast riffing and math metal intensity of Meshuggah! If I survive, I will give a review and post video...


UPDATE: Oh sweet Jesus, that was intense.

Meshuggah 1, Famous M 0. It was just about the most brutal, unrelenting concert I've been too. Ever. And that's not the 5 Jack and Cokes talking either. Those Swedish bastards showed up and claimed their stake. Period. They were ready to go another 12 rounds and I was finished. Gone.

My partners in this experiment of endurance and human punishment were H.R.M. Idle Eyes The See-Thru and (surprisingly braving the testosterone tsunami) FemBot. The House Of Blues is a motherfucker for killing cell reception, but despite the obstacles, we all managed to meet up by the second band. Let me backtrack and say that Faceless, the opening act was far better than I'd have expected. Chere Fem and I agreed that, while cliche, they were fairly strong for the typical staring act. We did enjoy their opening instrumental song more than the rest of the tracks with Cookie Monster on vocals, but still, not too shabby.

By the time Cynic started up, we had moved to the other side of the room and parked ourselves accordingly barside for more drinks and chatter. Unfortunately, they sucked pretty hard. Sure, they had the chops, but Idle Eyes thought simultaneously with me that they were rocking the Dream Theater too hard, and those guys clearly blow with their all-chops-and-no-heart wank music. Thankfully, they didn't keep me from taking care of almost a half dozen Jack and Cokes and the three of us feasting on some of the tastier french fries you'd find at a venue.

I had endured waiting in line and being crowded into the room with some of the most typical metalheads you could imagine for a set of pulverizing music, but it was past 10pm and still there was no quintet of badasses on that stage! There were tales of World Of Warcraft guilds and revelations about smuggling contraband into concerts, haircuts several months past their breaking point, and every flavor of band logo on black tee shirts, and still no band, only techies and road crew. It really felt like we'd been there the whole day, waiting for our marquee band to play, and finally...they did.

(to be continued, especially once some Youtube clips are available)