From the Frontlines: Warbringer, Overkill and Kreator

A few weeks ago, I had the fortune to attend the Kreator concert in Vancouver. Because I'm a paranoid fuck and have a need to show up to the general area of a show hours in advance, I had about 3 hours to kill before the doors opened. I decided to head to the rock shop to grab a Testament t-shirt I didn't have since I was wearing an Iron Maiden shirt (side note, wearing an Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath shirt to a show is like walking up to every concert attendee and saying "I LISTEN TO METAL TOO!!!"). When I was there, I met three other people in town for the show. One, a dude who while clearly metal, did enjoy some punk. The chick (who from here on I will be referring to as "The Chick") the most metal of the group with the bullet belt and Overkill backpatch (I'm struggling to remember if it was actually Kreator, but what the fuck ever). And some dude half our size with a spencers' trucker cap and gauged ears. I inaudibly expressed distaste and pity in his direction throughout the entire night.

We talked a bit about random shit until I had to keep up my metal health with a pizza and three bottles of molson to warm me up. I pissed away about an hour listening to some dude playing guitar for his facebook page. Something about breathing new life into Vancouver's metal scene, I forget. While the guy could play, I found it mildly amusing that he wants to "Breathe new life into Vancouver" when the city already has a pretty good metal scene as far as North America goes. After fucking around for another hour, I stumbled on over to the Rickshaw theater. To get to the Rickshaw from Robson street is a bit of a hike. Take a wrong turn, and you'll be forced to wade through half a kilometer of homeless and junkies looking to blow you for 20 bucks. Unfortunately for me, I zigged when I should have zagged and was forced to endure the gauntlet of STD ridden crackheads.

Upon reaching the venue, I was pleased to see on first glance that no poseurs or gauged ears were in sight. Every one was of the proper attire save for a bunch of Kreator shirts before the doors opened (for more info, see here). Whenever I go to a thrash concert, I for some reason wind up talking to guys going in that are 15-20 years older than I am (save for a shorter, less ugly version of me). Probably because they're the only ones metal enough for me to relate with. Thanks to me making a rogue facebook check, I found that moment to the joy of surrounding attendees that Death Angel was going to be touring here in February (Woohoo!). With Tyr (Hell yeah!). Supporting Children of Bodom (FUCK!!!). Once I discovered that bad news, the doors opened and we all got our beers. Far too many chose PBR over Cariboo.

Next came the thirty minutes of acquainting ourselves with the merch, layout of the floor, the general area of the pit and the entire discography of Iron Maiden playing through the speakers. The Rickshaw is a redesigned theater that used to show old kung fu movies but was shut down because the denizens of Vancouver have no taste when it comes to film. About a decade ago it was turned into the concert hall it is now. So first up was Warbringer, probably the most punk Thrash Metal band I've seen. There was not a second where their guitarists weren't flailing about wildly, leaping on top of their amps or just plain headbanging like psychopaths. Save for a few Kreator songs, the pit during their set was at its most vicious. In between songs, I reunited with Beard, The Chick, and Ear Gauges to partake in the usual metal conversations:

"Fuck yeah!"

"This rocks!"

"WARBRINNNGERRR!!!"

During the intermission, I opted to go grab a beer and get some water from the convenience store next door. This is where I found the first poseur of the night (Ear Gauges, I'm still keeping an eye on though. Oh, he wasn't as blatant as your typical scene queen, but he caught my scrutiny fairly quickly. At a first glance, you may just think he's an oldguard in a white collar. You, know, clean shaven, short hair, what have you. He's wearing jeans and a leather jacket sure, but what is that you spy UNDER the jacket? Not a band shirt or even a black t-shirt, but a WORK SHIRT. You read that right. I'm talking "collared, front pocket, kinda shirt you see on a golf course" work shirt. Before I selected my junk food, I waited for what this void of intelligence had to say. This guy however did the unthinkable. His clear lack of knowledge was exposed in mere milliseconds of him exhaling what sounded like words out of his mouth.

The lady behind the counter: "Sounds like a big show is going on over there."

Undercover false man: "Yah. It's Kreator. Best band in the world next to Metallica."

I nearly dropped my god damned bag of cheezies. I'd need a full keg to drown the falseness I had paid witness to. As he left, I saw him subtly put something down on the counter as the lady turned her back. It was a small flyer for a metal radio station "I GOT YOU DEAD TO RIGHTS NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!!!" I screamed in my mind. I paid for my fuel, took the flyer as toilet paper for later, and kept a sharp eye on the jackoff. Returning inside, I met up with the trio and noticed the poseur walking by, very unsubtly checking out The Chick's ass and at the last second making it seem like he was looking at her backpatch. Thankfully, I was not the only one who sniffed him out. The Beard glared at him as he went into the hall.

Beard: "Did you see that?"

Me: "Yes I did."

Chick: "What?"

Me: "That jackoff was checking out your ass."

Beard: "That motherfucker."

The Chick then went upstairs to the restroom after saying something that I forgot in my drunken stupor.

Beard: "Can you believe that asshole?"

Me: "Yes."

Beard: "The fucking poseur."

Me: "I fucking called it when I first saw him."

Our conversation was cut off with the fading lights in the hall, and everyone piled in for Overkill. If Kreator was not going to play after, there may have been a riot, but it would have been worth it just for Overkill. Electric Rattlesnake, Hammerhead, and motherfucking Ironbound. A kickass circle pit and crowd surfing came together to form a truly awesome experience. Nothing of much importance happened after their set save for Justin Hagberg, guitarist of 3 Inches of motherfucking Blood attending the show. This is one of the great things about the Vancouver Metal scene. Often times your favorite band from there will just show up right next to you without you noticing until the last second.

When Kreator took the stage, the entire fucking building might as well have been a pit. Phantom Antichrist is a fucking excellent song, and is the reason why I couldn't talk for two days after. When they played From Flood Into Fire, I grabbed two other guys, a black dude with an afro missing three teeth, and the previously mention non ugly version of me and started headbanging in unision with them at the shoulder throughout a good chunk of the song. The set had two circle pits and a truly brutal wall of death. But that's not the best part of this set. Right in front of where me, Beard, and The Chick had stationed ourselves, a fight broke out. I'm not sure why, but I am sure of who. The poseur radio station asshole was getting his ass rightly pounded.

The bouncer came in and grabbed the pussy and the other guy by the collar and escorted them the fuck out. Me and Beard joyously flipped him off side by side as he was being led out. Sure, Mille wasn't too pleased with that, but hell, the fucker deserved it. The show was fucking awesome. It was all the ruthless carnage of the world tied together with the focused fury that Kreator gives out. This all culminated with the performance of their title track from their masterpiece of an EP, Flag of Hate. At the time of this writing, they still got a few more shows in Latin America and then Brazil. So if you want to pay heed to a thrash show to tear your face off, you better have been born wearing an Iron Maiden shirt and kicking a soccer ball out of the womb.

Having pushed my liver and ears to the breaking limit for the month, I elected to head back to my car for the night. The last I saw of Beard, The Chick and Gauged Ears was outside after the show when I drunkenly swaggered to the skytrain. Apparently, the poseur was allowed back into the club whereupon he was grinding or something on The Chick. Beard was pissed off and rightfully so, as he was her boyfriend. The asswipe seemed totally oblivious as to how much of a dick and poseur he was, as most are. I probably would've made things worse, being drunker than an drunken Irish dockworker's drunken Irish dockworker uncle, so I managed to find my way to a station and miraculously got off at the right stations to my car.

I love it when true metal punishes a foe.

Slipknot!? Still?!

Let me put together the setting for you. You're in your local record store and making a beeline to the microscopic metal section, when you notice another has taken the position of viewing which albums he'll illegally download later. You analyze him. Long hair, goatee, Exodus shirt, jeans and boots. This motherfucker sure looks the part. You walk beside him and blatantly, but very casually pick up the new Kreator live album even though you already have, and possibly illegally downloaded it. you look at the track listing, subtly facing the front towards the other guy so he can see it. He turns to you and asks if you're going to their show coming up, and thus the Metalhead equivalent of ass-sniffing has begun.

You talk of upcoming shows, local bands, preference of instruments and whatnot. Regale of past battles in the pit, and talk about the biggest poseurs you've met of recent memory. Then he drops the bomb. He casually looks at the stack of CD's in his possession, rightfully returning Dark Tranquillity's latest Depeche Mode worship but picks up an even greater aggression against True Metal. Slipknot. Immediately, I spat on his boots and pulled a u-turn, pushing over the Angry Birds merchandise and kicking down a wall of small sized comic nerd shirts on the way out.

And that scene bro behind the counter was going to be a father

This is not a rare occurrence. Every so often, I'll come across someone who has impeccable taste in music. Moonsorrow, Savatage, a guy who dislikes Stratovarius' new album and thinks that Time I gets too much crap. But for some reason they still hang on to Slipknot like its no big deal. I know Slipknot isn't too high on the false metal radar nowadays, especially when things like Asking Alexandria are sexually abusing any device used to record audio, but while hating Slipknot is as passe as hating Korn, so is liking Slipknot. To the five of you who don't know, Slipknot is a band of 9 people who wear stupid masks and jumpsuits, number themselves then get on stage banging trash cans, timpani, playing guitars with four redundant strings, have a second guitarist for no god damned reason and has a guy with a turntable.

Didn't know Pinhead had a personal set of gimps

If you are a proper metalhead, you should have noticed several things wrong as hell with the above description. Firstly, you don't need to be an astrophysicist to know that this is a Nu Metal band. No truest of the true band should in any right have a turntable as an instrument, and while we're at it, neither is a sampler, whatever the fuck that is. If you have 3 percussionists, YOU HAVE TOO MANY PERCUSSIONISTS. Also, why in fuck everlasting do you have more than one guitarist? This is perhaps the most subtle "hey, lets get all our other friends in the band too!" thing, because most legitimate metal bands nowadays have a reason for a second guitarist. For the harmony, playing counter riffs, emphasizing power chords, playing rhythm for the solo or having a dueling solo. 

This is Nu Metal. Expecting any of this shit is giving it too much credit. You know, I feel like I'm just blurting out the most obvious shit possible, so I'll skip Corey Taylor and get back to my main point. Slipknot is not metal. I don't care if you worship the lord Ronnie James Dio with a passion as much as I do, you'll not earn the right to wield the horns until you cast aside your dildo mask.

Safeword! SAFEWORD!!!

I have an idea for the next post, so it may come earlier. But I don't fucking know.

Symphonic Metal: The Current Pop Metal

Name's Jay. You're going to incorrectly think I'm wrong all the time. Now that we have introductions out of the way, lets move on.

When Nightwish came on to the scene with their Symphonic/Operatic approach to Power Metal, it was noticeably unique in the sense that while other Power Metal bands that had orchestra backings used them sparingly or only to add to the scope that the metal instruments created, Nightwish used it as the main focus of their music. When you get down to it, most people (that is, people without musical taste) don't like metal, or at least don't know that they like it. This is why I believe so many fucking dolts throw up the horns when they clearly only listen to rap and metalcore, the two most un-metal genres of music.

Nightwish's approach to songwriting by putting the symphonic arrangements ahead of their metal has without a doubt been scientifically designed to consistently sell without fail. It's precisely like Hair Metal, yet unlike Hair Metal, shows no sign of dying in the future. They've done the impossible. They've achieved the endless success of a pop legend, with a metalhead fanbase. No band should have that kind of power.

While this has indeed widened Power Metal's audience, it will eventually only narrow their taste. What do I mean? Well, whether you hate Metal Archives or not, look up their similar artists page and check out the BILLIONS OF NIGHTWISH CLONES. I can not stress how fucking blatant and boring each one of these bands are. This genre might as well be called Nightwish Metal. Metal Archives has the audacity to list Amberian Dawn as a Neo-Classical Metal band, yet 20 seconds of listening to one of their "We wish we were as big as Nightwish" songs made me to groan so hard that I caused an avalanche somewhere in the rocky mountains, killing half a group of friends forcing the other half to make a perilous journey to civilization while they're being stalked by an unknown beast that the avalanche unearthed.

I don't even really need to describe Symphonic Metal's characteristics. I could much more easily tell you to listen to a Nightwish song. There, you've heard every single Symphonic Metal song. Many bands will try to duck this and call themselves a "Gothic Metal Band". Don't be fooled. They are one and the same. Drummers range from lackluster to decent, Bassists are even less present than actual power metal, Guitarists are only there because they have to make them sound edgy, or because they do the  death growls that half of the Nightwish clones do. Keyboardists are either the main writers or are only there because they can't fit an orchestra on a 10x20 stage, and the vocalist is always, ALWAYS, a woman. This is the unerring law of all Symphonic Metal bands. The only two questions you have to ask someone when forming a Symphonic Metal band are "Is it a chick?" and "does she sing like Tarja?". Two yes's? Congratulations! You have a Symphonic Metal band and by the time you all meet your checks'll be in the mail!

This kind of metal is simple as balls to play and requires nearly no experience in playing solos. I should know. I suck at solos. Drummers only need to listen to the radio and be able to play at the blistering pace of an Alicia Keys song, and bassists need to be able to pick a string. This shit makes Breaking the Law and Paranoid tabs look like an Yngwie Malmsteen self indulgent ego trip that he calls an album. And even the shit that is pushed forward as the main focus of the songwriting is hardly that great. Listening to Leaves' Eyes, I can almost hear the cellists falling asleep in their chairs. If you want some glorious orchestra to display their skill along with the metal, why pass on Blind Guardian, Pathfinder, or Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire/Luca Turilli's Rhapsody/Rhapsody IV:The Rhapsodying? Nightwish is not in it for the artistic integrity of pushing the boundaries of Metal like so many claim/once claimed. This isn't like Folk Metal where there's no sacrifice on the Metal side. Any Metal in symphonic metal is being strapped down on an altar and is being tortured by mildly attractive classical singers and their useless bandmates.

There was a time when we all hated Hair Metal. We thought it was a bunch of pussies in mom's stockings playing a watered down version of True Metal. Well I bet you anything that Motley Crue could kick the shit out of Epica even with Mick Mars being incapable of moving his torso and Tommy Lee without his billions of STD medication. Symphonic Metal is the new Pop Metal. And we will only listen to Symphonic metal for the same reason we did Hair metal. Because that chick we think is into us is going to their concert next week.