Rock USA Oshkosh, 2014, Day 2: Megadeth, Rob Zombie

Post #293

On Thursday July 17th I made a trip up to Oshkosh , WI to enjoy what Rock USA Fest had to offer. The line-up for this summer was packed with a versatile line-up of bands ranging from mainstream radio-friendly melodic rock bands like 3 Doors Down and Seether to more extreme metal acts like Megadeth and Slayer.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the first day of this fest, but I made it for the 2nd. I was in for a treat as this evening's headliners were Megadeth followed by Rob Zombie! This would be the 4th or 5th time I've seen Megadeth, but my first time to see Rob Zombie. I was curious to see what they each would play in their concert set-list. With such a diversity of bands, and the festival format leaving each band with the same amount of performance time (1 hour) I was expecting sets focused on the bands' big hits and fan favorites. I wasn't far off.

Megadeth's set was during sunset hours; they went on at dusk, and played until just after dark. Overall Megadeth didn't play anything much different from what I've seen them play before. Again, this was more likely due to the limited set-time and the desire to appeal to a crowd that may not know more than their hits anyway. They included their biggest classics: Hangar 18, Peace Sells, Trust, and Symphony of Destruction. The one thing that I found entertaining and was a new element I had not seen them do before, is every few songs they would play a clip from a movie between songs. The movie clip always referenced the music of Megadeth. I did not recognize all the movies from which they sampled, but I know one was from one of the Wayne's World films. The one song that was new for me was from their newest album Super Collider, as they performed 'Kingmaker'

Rob Zombie was a different experience for me. I would not call Rob Zombie my favorite band or performer, or even in my top 5, top 10, top 25, or even top 50. I enjoy live music for the raw quality of it; hard-working musicians playing their instruments purely for our entertainment as fans- not as much as when the performance is mixed with a playback of recorded effects and artificial musical elements. I also enjoy hearing a band perform their original works (more than I do cover-songs, although a good cover is often worth hearing, so long as an original band doesn't go overboard on the covers.) Now, in spite of Rob Zombie being guilty of most of these shortcomings from my personal perspective, I do have to say that he did win me over with his performance! Equal credit should be given to his lead guitarist, John 5. John 5 performed an 8-minute guitar solo prior to their encore that I would honestly say was the best concert guitar solo I've witnessed since the last time I saw Eddie Van Halen... in 1998!

In spite of the crowd's inability to express their fanaticism kinetically for the music (due largely to the seating format which included row upon row of plastic lawn chairs the went right up to the stage), Rob still gave a top-notch performance as a front man, and delivered all his best-known songs (Dragula, More Human Than Human, Living Dead Girl), and several good covers (Alice Cooper's 'School's Out', Grand Funk's 'We're an American Band', and to my enthusiastic surprise, Diamond Head's metal classic 'Am I Evil?'). He even outdid himself, by virtue of being the night's headliner, by over-playing his set time by about 30 minutes. He prefaced his closing number by saying: "So we're only allowed to play until midnight... ... so we have one more song. Don't worry though, it's a 20-minute song."

In closing I will say that although Rob Zombie may not be among my favorite bands, he is certainly a formidable live performer. I will watch for him on tour in the future, and I will see him again if opportunity presents itself. I would recommend seeing Rob Zombie live in concert to even his most fair-weather of fans.

Even though I arrived too late for the performances of Hellyeah and All That Remains, I will include their setlists below for reference. I found them online at setlist.fm - an excellent, fan-contributed and edited website for documenting live performances. I would recommend this site to any concert-goer.

Rock USA Setlists from Thursday, July 17th, 2014:

HELLYEAH
-Cowboy Way
-Matter of Time
-Sangre Por Sangre (Blood for Blood)
-Drink Drank Drunk
-Cross to Bier (Cradle of Bones)
-Band of Brothers
-You Wouldn't Know
-Hellyeah!

ALL THAT REMAINS
-The Air That I Breathe
-Now Let Them Tremble
-...For We Are Many
-Some of the People, All of the Time
-What if I was Nothing?
-Asking Too Much
-Six
-Down Through the Ages
-Hold On
-The Last Time
-This Darkened Heart
-Two Weeks

MEGADETH
(Prince of Darkness -played as intro...)
-Hangar 18
-Wake Up Dead
-In My Darkest Hour
-Sweating Bullets
-Public Enemy #1
-She-Wolf
-Trust
-Kingmaker
-Symphony of Destruction
-Peace Sells
--------
-Holy Wars... the Punishment Due

ROB ZOMBIE
-Dragula
-Superbeast
-Living Dead Girl
-Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Supertown
(drum solo)
-More Human Than Human
-Sick Bubblegum
-House of 1000 Corpses
-Never Gonna Stop
-Am I Evil?
-Thunder Kiss '65
(guitar solo)
-School's Out/Thunder Kiss '65 (continued)
--------
-We're an American Band

Heavy Metal Madness:Bonus Round Summary

Post #181 [Poll Winner: Heavy Metal Madness-Bonus round results]
On New Year's Day, the bonus round for the ongoing 'Heavy Metal Madness 2012' contest closed and the field of bands in this competition is now down to 64.

With the closing of the poll, the bands that advanced to face the #1 seeds in the four respective genre-blocks were: DANZIG, THE WHO, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, and DEATH. Respectively, voters eleminated some very talented and influentail bands: ALL THAT REMAINS, EVANESCENCE, DEEP PURPLE, and TYPE O-NEGATIVE. It should be pointed out that these results were 100% in line with the Heavy Metal Madness Selection Committee's preference, as in each case, the band that came out ranked 16th, bested the band ranked 17th. The smallest margin of victory was DANZIG over TYPE-O-NEGATIVE, where DANZIG collected a tie-breaking vote in the last hours of the polling window, making the final vote-count 20-19!

So, as we dismiss these 4 bands form this tournament, I'll leave you with a selected song or two from each. Just a reminder of the talented musicians you ultimately decided against for the chance to be crowned the "Best Heavy Metal Band" of all-time...

All That Remains:
-Hold On

Evanescence:
-Bring Me To Life

Deep Purple:
-Smoke On The Water

Type O-Negative:
-Christian Woman

ALL THAT REMAINS-For We Are Many

Post #177
Massachusetts metalcore veterans ALL THAT REMAINS have again proved themselves masters at fusing hardcore with melodic metal on their newest album, For We Are Many. With this release they manage to simultaneously hang on to their radio-friendly melodicism and reach back to some of their more hardcore roots.

For production, they also went back to Adam Dutkiewicz (from Killswitch Engage) who had previously produced their albums The Fall of Ideals and This Darkened Heart. For 2008's Overcome they had chosen Jason Suecof for production. How much credit Dutkiewicz deserves for the resurgence of hardcore elements on For We Are Many I cannot say. Whoever's decision it was, I can say this; it works. And it works very well!

...For We Are Many is a modern masterpiece of melodic metalcore at its finest. Vocalist Phil Labonte keeps a finger on the pulse of modern melodic metal with his infectious melodies, but on many tracks he draws on his inner fury to bring menacing screams and growls into the mix. The best songs on their latest release exhibit a perfect balance of the extreme and mainstream vocals within them. If you are asking yourself how this can work, you obviously have not listened to this album.

Beyond the vocal style, which by now has become All That Remains' trademark, there is the equally impressive lead guitar work by guitarist Oli Herbert. Herbert is quickly becoming one of my favorite guitarists of the current generation of metal's 6-string slingers. The guitar solos on For We Are Many perfectly maintain their balanced attack on your auditory senses. Intense, melodic, masterful, classic. I am tempted to say 'timeless' to describe the soloing work on lead guitar, but that is up to time to tell. Almost every track on this album is worth hearing.

Happyheadbanger's recommended tracks:
-Now Let Them Tremble... (the intro, flows straight into the title track...)
-For We Are Many (All That Remains get straight to it with the title track; a fierce tour-de-force that reclaims their hardcore dominance.)
-The Last Time (A catchy, more melodic number, but still seriously heavy!)
-Won't Go Quietly (here we get all sides of All That Remains, and Oli Herbert adds a new twist with a voice-box effect towards the end.)
-Dead Wrong (One of the more extreme tracks on the album. The hardest vocals Phil has delivered since 'The Weak Willed' back on The Fall of Ideals...)
-Faithless (Another great, thrashy tune, lyrics convey the message of strength and resilience, as many ATR songs often do.)
-The Waiting One (Here the album closes with the softest offering from All That Remains. A beautiful ballad)

All That Remains

Post #89
All That Remains are a metalcore band from Springfield, MA. Under the production guidance of Killswitch Engage's Adam Dutkiewicz they've become a solid part of the east-coast melodic-metalcore scene. In fact their lead singer even auditioned for Killswitch's vocal spot back when they decided to go with Howard Jones. As their sound has evolved over their last couple albums, they've increased the use of melodic vocals in their music, while their guitars & drums have remained brutally heavy.

I first discovered them at Ozzfest '06, when they were supporting their album The Fall Of Ideals. I've also seen them more recently at Mayhem Festival last year.

I must confess that I was not an instant fan when I first heard them. I thought them just another hard-core/death-metal band with too much screaming and not enough molody for my tastes. The riffs were heavy and the drums simply brutal, but back in '06, I wasn't quite feeling that vibe in metal...

A couple years went by and they were on the bill of another summer heavy metal music festival I was planning to attend. However the key was their new album, Overcome. For me, this was the type of album I needed to fully gain an appreciation for this band. It helped that their single,"Two Weeks" was getting some air-play on my local rock & metal radio station. As is usually the case with me, it was the guitar solo that caught my ear. Give me a good guitar solo and a bit of melody in the riffs & vocals and I'm usually happy.

Unable to get enough of this song, I went out and bought the CD. Then I noticed their Fall Of Ideals album right behind Overcome, with the sticker advertising Ozzfest 2006 still on it. Then I realized why their name sounded familiar. Eventually I bought that CD as well. Of the two, Overcome is much more melodic on all levels. It's primed for more mainstream listeners. Lyrically, All That Remains seem to focus on self-empowering themes. Strength, resiliance, and integrity in the face of adversity generally sums up what All That Remains are all about.

So now I see their direction more clearly; blending death-metal screaming vocals with melodic, almost 80's-metal style vocals, while the guitars & drums follow the same contrast; beautiful clean & pretty melodies one second, blast-beat & bone-crushing heaviness the next. Depending on which song you're hearing from All That Remains, the two extremes are present in varying ratios. There are a lot of bands out there that blend the screams with melody as well, but All That Remains really have a unique formula that stands out a bit.

My suggestions from these two albums:

The Fall Of Ideals

-This Calling (A viscious scream kicks off this song, but the chorus is very melodic!)

-Not Alone (A great melodic guitar solo here, mixed between the shredding riffs)

-Whispers (I Hear You)

-The Weak Willed (This one contains elements of true death-metal vocals, but again it's tempered by melodic guitars towards the end...)

-Six (Great melodic break-down segment in this song!)

Overcome

-Before The Damned (This one is probably the heaviest on this album, the rest of the tracks are more melodic...)

-Two Weeks (Still one of my favorites!)

-Forever In Your Hands (this one could be called a power-ballad, heavy on the 'power' of course!)

-Chiron

-Believe In Nothing (This is a cover of a song originally by Nevermore)

MAYHEM FESTIVAL 2009 (Concert Review)

Post #81
I'm usually always on the look-out for Ozzfest each summer. It's a great package-deal, day-long indulgence of live heavy metal mayhem. However, when I found out that Sharron & Ozzy Osbourne had not planned an Ozzfest for '09 so that Ozzy could write and record a new album, I was bummed out. What was I to do to satiate my annual craving for an outdoor concert festival of chaos?!?

Luckily I soon discovered Mayhem Festival! This is another summer festival tour featuring several heavy metal bands that started last year. This year's line-up featured several newer bands that I've recently become a big fan of: Bullet For My Valentine, Trivium and All That Remains; as well as some bands I've been a long-time fan of: Killswitch Engage and Slayer! Needless to say I was hyped to get 2 lawn admission tickets as a birthday gift! I invited a friend of mine who had been with me to Ozzfest before, and he was game.

We took our time getting to the show, not really caring if we missed the 1st few bands, since all the artists we were interested in were pretty high on the bill. So when we arrived Behemoth was on stage. They were showering the crowd with their brand of death metal, ghostly white makeup covering their faces. They played some pretty heavy tunes, but before we even heard 2 songs they were finished.

Almost immediately after they concluded their set, All That Remains came onto another stage (for this fest there were 2 small stages, sponsored by Jagermeister & Hot Topic respectively). The dual stage set-up really helped the festival move along at a faster pace than I had ever seen at an Ozzfest. All That Remains really kicked the crowd's asses with their brand of melodic-metalcore from the east coast: blast-beat drumming, gutteral-screaming vocals mixed with strong melodic singing, heavy riffs and plenty of shredding guitar solos... This was my kind of metal! Although their set seemed pretty short, there was plenty more in store...

(Let me mention here that I am not especially into Death Metal. I do enjoy very heavy music and a bit of screaming vocals, but I have to have a bit of melody somewhere in the music. So don't be offended if I don't focus on all the bands at this festival.)

The next act was The Black Dahlia Murder. As is their trademark, they came on stage wearing suits with loosened neckties. They began assailing the audience with their screaming death-metal vocals and got right into their set.

Since neither my friend nor I are particular fans of all-out death metal, we took this opportunity to browse the various vendors at the venue. We checked out a good deal of music & memorabilia stands and made our way back in time to catch the end of Black Dahlia Murder and were prepared to get a good spot close to the stage for Trivium...

In recent months, Trivium have quickly become one of my favorite bands. As I've mentioned before they blend melodic vocals with metalcore-style screams, classic-thrash inspired riffs with a heavy use of intricate guitar solos, and tight rapid-fire double bass drumming. I can honestly say they were the main reason behind my desire to see this concert. I was really hyped to hear what they had in store for us.

Before the last echoes of The Black Dahlia Murder had even faded, Trivium's intro music began to play. It was "The End of Everything", and just like in my review of "Ascendancy", it set the tone for their set. Also just like Ascendancy they kicked off their part of the show with "Rain"! Mini mosh pits started up in a couple places. Matt Heafy directed the moshers, and encouraged much headbanging by example. I craved hearing each song, one after another.

It seemed they were finished almost before they got rolling, but they had given us a good mix of tunes, primarily from the albums Ascendancy and Shogun. Before their last number they announced they would be signing merchandise at the Roadrunner booth. Unfortunately I thought the line too long by the time I found it... a rare opportunity missed.

While Cannibal Corpse was on, we took the opportunity to migrate to the mainstage to get a good view from the lawn. Bullet for My Valentine would be the mainstage opener...

After getting situated with a good view of the stage we kicked back for a few while Cannibal Corpse's droning buzzsaw riffs and harsh vocals faded away in the background, and about 20 minutes later Bullet For My Valentine took the stage and wasted no time in delivering mosh-worthy music as they opened with "Waking The Demon".

Most of their set was also some of their heavier numbers. The peak of their set was probably "Tears Don't Fall", arguably their most well-known song. The lawn section developed an enthusiastic mosh-pit where the intensity of the mosh mirrored the intensity of the music. They closed their set with "Scream, Aim, Fire", the title-track from their newest album, and most recent hit.

Bullet for My Valentine were a perfect appetizer for the next band: Killswitch Engage. KsE are a band as well know for their sense of humor as they are for their thundrous style of melodic metalcore music. Their humorous attitude was immediately apparent when they came on stage and drummer Justin Foley tells us all, "Why don't you put this in your pipe and smoke it!" Not to be overshadowed, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz wore a black cape over his otherwise-normal garb of t-shirt & shorts.


Being one of the most influential bands of the east-coast melodic metalcore scene, Killswitch had a strong following present in the crowd. The crowd was ready to honor these guys with enthusiastic moshing, and lucky for them, Adam & lead singer Howard Jones were ready to direct them. A few songs into the set Adam paused to scold the crowd, claiming he saw too many people standing still. He said, "This is 'Mayhem Fest' not 'May I Stand Around and Act Like a Pussy-Fest'!" That worked to energize the crowd for another couple songs. Then Jones took a few minutes to direct the lawn section to participate in what I can only describe as a 'Chinese Stand-Off' mosh pit...

If you've ever seen the movie "Big Trouble in Little China", then you know what I mean. There's a scene in the film where 2 china-town gangs have an all-out brawl in an alley. This mosh kick-off looked pretty much like that, minus the guns & blades, but just as intense. It was pure adrenaline personified! Then Killswitch proceeded to complete a great set of new songs mixed with their best known classics. If that wasn't enough we still had Slayer & Manson to look forward to.... and Slayer were up next!

The penultimate act of the night, Slayer were about to bring the entire festival to a new level of Mayhem! In the lull between sets, my buddy & I had edged our way up close to the front fence of the lawn section to get a better view of the last couple acts now that the sun had set....

With the stage set in darkness, an intro of static, feedback, and spoken dialog began to play while upon the black screen back-drop images of various Slayer logos began to turn in circles. I would later realize the intro was actually "Darkness of Christ" from their album God Hates Us All. As soon as the intro drew to a close, the band launched straight into "Disciple", and Slayer's clinic of old-school thrash metal was underway.

Early in their set they played one of their new songs from their upcoming album "World Painted Blood". The song was "Psychopathy Red". Thereafter the rest of their set focused on songs from their greatest albums from the mid-80's: "Reign in Blood", "South of Heaven", and "Seasons in the Abyss".

Although I was transfixed by their stage-set and pyrotechnics (which included a flame-spewing Slayer/pentagram logo), I did take a moment at one point to check the status of the mosh-pit behind me. I was curious if the crowd had run out of steam from moshing all day. That was certainly NOT the case, as the entire lawn seemed like a froth of moshing bodies. It was like watching a popcorn popper, except with human bodies!

Lastly the closing of Mayhem Fest was up to Marilyn Manson. Supporting their new album "The High End of Low", Manson took the stage and did their best to keep the crowd rolling. They opened up with "We're From America". Marilyn Manson himself was draped in an American flag and wearing a war helmet. Manson's music is stylistically quite different from many of the faster-tempo acts that had preceded them in this festival. It was clear to me that much of the crowd had had their fill after the speed & intensity of Slayer and began to head for the exits. The faithful that remained seemed more dedicated to the Marilyn Manson frame of mind: united together against the norm, against the grain, and against the status quo.

Though they did select a few songs from their new album, there were enough of their classics that I recognized that still made the show enjoyable, in spite of it seeming a little anti-climatic following the likes of Slayer. The tunes; "Dope Show", "Tourniquet", and "The Beautiful People" were included among others...

Overall, a fantastic day of Heavy-Metal indulgence!

Setlists (to the best of my recollection) for the acts I saw are as follows:

ALL THAT REMAINS
-This Calling
-Chiron
-Forever In Your Hands
-Whispers
-Six
-The Air That I Breathe
-Undone
-Two Weeks

TRIVIUM
-The End of Everything
-Rain
-When All Light Dies
-Down From the Sky
-Throes of Perdition
-Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE
-Waking the Demon
-End of Days
-4 Words (To Choke Upon)
-No Control

-Her Voice Resides(?)
-Tears Don't Fall
-Hand of Blood
-Scream Aim Fire

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
-My Last Serenade
-Reckoning
-Fixation on the Darkness
-Light in a Darkened World
-A Bid Farewell
-My Curse
-Rose of Sharyn
-Starting Over
-The End of Heartache
-Holy Diver

SLAYER
-Darkness of Christ
-Disciple
-War Ensemble
-Jihad
-Psychopathy Red
-Born of Fire
-Mandatory Suicide
-Chemical Warfare
-Ghosts of War
-Dead Skin Mask
-Hell Awaits
-Angel of Death
-South of Heaven
-Raining Blood

MARILYN MANSON
-We're From America
-Disposable Teens
-Little Horn
-Irresponsible Hate Anthem
-Four Rusted Horses
-Arma... ...geddon
-Dope Show
-Rock is Dead
-Tourniquet
-Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)
-The Beautiful People

http://www.rockstarmayhemfest.com/mayhem/index.asp