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Mastodon Concert Review
The Southern blood is alive and well, and Mastodon, Converge, and The Bronx have joined forces to prove it. Interesting, considering that only one of the three (Mastodon) comes from below the Mason-Dixon; The Bronx are from Los Angeles, and Converge from the decidedly un-southern blue-blood of Boston. But none of this mattered last Thursday night, where at the Metro in Wrigleyville, Chicago the rollicking rough ‘n’ tumble entertained a nearly full house for three solid hours.
We (we being my Converge-enamored cohort Rudolf and I) arrived at the venue a quarter before seven, where a cadre of fans lounged outside keeping company an idling maroon tour bus. We entered, crossing our fingers for remaining tickets and got lucky. I was more than willing to part with the $18 dollars, knowing that either Mastodon or Converge would have been worth the cover price alone. The Bronx, I suspected, would be a forgetful necessity.
And in this, I was pleasantly mistaken. Perhaps I still would not spend $18 to see just The Bronx, but I gladly would give them a third of what I did pay after watching their set. They began earlier than the scheduled time, so we missed their very outset, but the 30 minutes we caught were rousing and sincerely fun. On album, their style of southern rock tinged with metal honestly doesn’t impress that greatly, but the live atmosphere mixed with their ramped up delivery made them much more likeable. A more metal Clutch, after a fashion; the sort of band who can write a solo with a range of only four notes and pull it off. Vocalist Matt Craughthran has an easy delivery, and though his vocals were pitched to a ‘scream’ of sorts, his body language was fluid, downright casual. In fact, with the way he floated about the stage and grinned at the audience, I’d not be surprised if he’d been gliding on something other than endorphins. Still, he was a charismatic frontman, even climbing over the barrier to dance in the audience towards the end of their set. Sporting low-slung, flying-V guitars, they kicked out a number of tunes from their newest album and left the crowd pleasantly warmed up, and certainly made more a fan of out of me.
For Converge, Rudolf and I thought it best to move away from the PA’s, which we’d been standing up against for the entirety of The Bronx’s set. (Side note: this move turned out to be the best idea of the night. As it was, I had ringing in my right ear for the next two days.) We were able to snag some really excellent spots towards the middle of the floor—apparently most of the people there were either too busy getting booze or really not that interested in Converge, which was a surprise. I had suspected at least a big a draw for these legendary innovators as for the relative newcomers Mastodon, but when the band members themselves came out to set up their equipment, I realized that living in suburban, metalcore saturated youth culture had skewed my perspective. Converge, though indeed both legendary and innovative, are still just regular guys moving their own amps and sound-checking their own instruments. I suppose I was a little disappointed, since I’d hoped they’d have the financial support to hire some roadies, but this DIY honesty does lend strength to their independent lyrical themes, I suppose.
It didn’t quite hit me that I was actually going to see Converge until Nate Newton hit the low string on his bass for the first time. I can’t even begin to imagine what it was tuned to, but that filthy rumble was truly inspiring. In fact, they could have stopped there, packed up, tipped their hat and said, ‘Good night, Chicago!’, and I’d have been satiated. Fortunately, though, their set-up continued, and after fifteen minutes Jacob came out, coated in tattoos, and they said, “Hey, we’re Converge, and we’ve only got 45 minutes, so we’re gonna get started.”
And they were incredible. As much as I might complain that there are too many metalcore, too many hardcore, simply too many ‘core’ bands out there today, Converge can stir my blood like no other. Sadly, hardcore has come to be understood as political posturing and fashion statements, but at its true, passionate heart lies Converge. Culling the most primal elements of punk rock and soldering them to an unshakable Heavy Metal core, Converge are instantly and eternally powerful.
Looking at the members from an outside perspective, one wouldn’t expect much out of them. Their drummer wore a teal tank-top and sported a moustache that I would have sworn was a cheap ‘My Name is Earl’ knock-off had I not known he’d been wearing it for years. Their bassist, utterly indistinguishable—regular Joe, maybe a little on the scruffy side. Kurt Ballou (much like Baloo the bear, actually, both in name and appearance) is a humble lump of a man—the sort of one who might play an extra in ‘Office Space’, wearing a bow tie and a short sleeved button down. Jacob Bannon, the lifesblood of Converge, is admittedly a standout character, inked from his neck to his hands, but his diminutive frame and open smile are hardly marks of a madman.
Once they begin to play, though, they are transformed. Ballou is no longer a benevolent teddy bear, but a roaring grizzly, spitting up out at the audience and raising the one-fingered salute towards the cameras. What’s more, he is one of the fastest chord-to-chord players I have ever seen, anchoring Converge’s relentless assault with incredible precision.
And the real focal point, the true spectacle, is Jacob Bannon. He is the one that the scene teenagers with emovers imitate in front of their mirror. He is a man possessed, throwing the microphone up like a bouquet, or an offering to the Gods, swinging the cord around his body and even caressing it with his tongue, placing the base against his temple and looking out at nothing as if hoping that somehow he could express the thoughts there, but there are no words powerful enough. It was a truly moving experience, watching him jerked around the stage like some macabre mannequin. By the time their last songs rolled around and he spoke to the audience with eyes shut, sweat streaming down his face, straining above a sea of dissonant guitars, he had the respect and attention of everyone in the room.
Stepping back from a fanboy perspective, I should note that they did play three cuts from their new album, ‘No Heroes’, which is coming out this fall. They all sounded to be fairly in the vein of ‘You Fail Me’, and by that I mean beautifully chaotic. Pick it up. Otherwise, their set was all Jane Doe material and onward, with notable cuts being ‘Black Cloud’, ‘Homewrecker’, ‘Concubine’, ‘You Fail Me’, and ‘Eagles Become Vultures’, each opening to enthusiastic cheers from a crowd that, for all their initial laziness, were attentive indeed.
After their set, the crowd already amassed near the stage did not retreat, and even more pushed towards the front to await the arrival of headliners Mastodon. They were a diverse bunch—black, white, blue-collar, white-collar (there actually was a young man in a business suit and horn-rimmed glasses there, a look of utter rapture on his face) and more, reflecting the rather widespread influences and attractions Mastodon employ.
15 minutes was the scheduled layover time, and after about 20 we were getting anxious, but it was not long past 8:30 that the lights went out and a spoken passage lifted from their new album ‘Blood Mountain’ oozed out of the speakers. The band then lumbered onto the stage through the smoke, framed perfectly by their eerie, unmarked backdrop of a forbidding winter forest.
Mastodon, it is often said, is quite appropriately named, so vast and weighty is their sound. But it goes beyond that, really; not only do they sound the part, they actually look it. Each member of this blonde quartet is a beastlike hulk of a man with fire in his eyes and fingertips. No fancy hair-gel or fancy threads here. Blood, sinew, muscle and bone.
As powerful a stampede as this band is on record, I for some reason did not expect their live performance to be particularly intense, and I was proved completely wrong within seconds. Each member channeled absolute focus, albeit in very different ways. Main vocalist Troy Sanders eyed his bass with a piercing gaze and treated it almost as if he were some possessed magician conjuring up a beast from the depths. Other vocalist Brent Hinds seemed to creak when he moved, his shoulders jammed up high and his movements blocky and deliberate. Interestingly, he also appeared to have some sort of sutured wound across his brow, adding a strange dimension to his already Frankenstein-like body language. Drummer Brann Dailor was somewhat lost in the mix, but from what I could hear of his effort he was as spot-on and effusive as he is on record, which is truly an incredible feat. His endurance is remarkable. Lead guitarist Bill Kelliher is probably the most normal looking of the group, though only when stacked next to his band-members. Nothing normal about his playing, though, as he and Brent handled the band’s unique technicality with grace and style.
Their set list, at the beginning, seemed to be almost entirely ‘Remission’ material. This I admired, as it shows the band still recalls their roots despite their newfound rock star status. Towards the middle and end, they mixed in a few ‘Leviathan’ tracks (‘Hearts Alive’, the 13 minute epic included), though not as many as I would have hoped for, and also took heavily from ‘Blood Mountain’. The crowd seemed to favor the ‘Remission’ material most consistently, though a number of ‘Blood Mountain’ tracks were greeted with great enthusiasm.
The single greatest moment of their set, though, was the performance of ‘Megalodon’, without a doubt. This was the song where ‘Leviathan’ clicked for me, with that incredible groove and drum break towards the middle. And the band knew it. When it arrived, they all pointed to Brent, who let it loose with a grin and watched the pit explode.
I was curious as to how Troy would be able to pull off his unique singing style live, and I must say I was impressed. His vocal chords looked perpetually fit to burst as each word tore from his throat, but he showed no signs of fatigue and kept a consistently gruff, ‘Leviathan’-esque tone throughout.
Unfortunately, all shows at The Metro that count as ‘early shows’ must end by 10 PM, so after a two-song encore the band lumbered back off again, changing back to men from the archaic beasts they were before.
It was an excellent experience, and a very well organized bill, if I do say so myself. That southern motif, whether it be simple, downright vile, or complex, (The Bronx, Converge, and Mastodon respectively) was well sustained and built upon. And, the merchandise for every band was less expensive at the show than on their websites, which is the real litmus test for how closely a band has kept to their roots. My hat is off to them all.
One sentence review: I can’t believe I thought about not going.
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