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Red Chord, The Concert Review
Aside from a negligible trip for a friend’s local group, Reggie’s Rock Club is a venue that I hadn’t experienced before last Saturday. Reggie’s has recently gotten press for its ‘happening’ status as well as its connection with the retailer Record Breakers, but for months I simply couldn’t find a show attractive enough for that virgin voyage.
Then came Lambs For Lions 2K8, Converge’s most recent venture across the U.S., and I knew I’d be hard pressed to find a better deal. Aside from the powerful draw exuded by the Boston vets themselves, the Lambs For Lions tour features strong and diverse support in Genghis Tron, Baroness, and The Red Chord. Sweetening the bargain, as if it were necessary, were local openers and semi-nude corporatists Hewhocorrupts.
I attended the Saturday show (a Sunday matinee was also scheduled), with doors opening around 6:30 to a healthy line of fans. The enthusiasm of the line was a little muted, but I imagine this has something to do with the venue’s location on Chicago’s south side, ensconced between two boarded up fish shacks and opposite some projects—not quite the regular haunt for white suburban teens.
Spirits were high inside the venue, though, with plenty of fans crowding the merch table. It should be noted that this tour had, overall, one of the most impressive arrays of merch art I’ve seen in some time, from Genghis Tron’s space age angles and rainbows to the lush curves of Baroness (think a more romantic Pushead) and Converge’s momentous splatter and detail. The latter two groups are especially notable, since John Baizley and Jacob Bannon create much of the art for their respective groups.
Beyond that cluttered foyer was the main room, still with plenty of elbow room at this early point. Reggie’s main floor is fairly small and with a downward slope, meeting directly with the compact stage. There isn’t much of a backstage to speak of, so bands would wheel in gear from outside through the one wing (stage-right) near the stairs to the cozy balcony seating up top for VIP’s. The back of the main floor was taken up by a bar, with open second floor above and behind it for those who wanted a bit of room to breathe. Altogether, it’s an intimate venue with an appealing character (though the managerial staff seemed to be rather brusque), cleanly combining a rock venue’s necessities with a club’s atmosphere.
The show began ahead of schedule with Hewhocorrupts taking the stage around 6:45 for a half-hour of their patently sardonic parody of the corporate world by way of grindcore freak-out. After a recent hiatus, Tommy Camaro is back as the group’s vocalist, and it indeed seems that they would be lost without his crass gestures or snarky comments between songs. This is, of course, to say nothing of the mandatory disrobement that occurs at every show of theirs, though it never flaunted or made much mention of at all. Instead, the clothing removal seemed almost incidental as Camaro and company charged through their set (including “seven songs in five minutes…ready?”) with abandon. At seemingly random intervals, the bassist would dart a hand over to an electronics board to cue the band’s samples, one of which was the now legendary BlueCross commercial featuring the little boy and his “kicked him in the penis” anecdote.
Some (though I’d wager not all) of the audience was clearly familiar with the shtick, and the band’s music was much tighter than their wild visuals would suggest, but something still felt a little too mild. Perhaps this is merely the aftereffect of the last time I saw them open for Plague Bringer’s record unleash show, when the crowd was as reckless as the band and the histrionics were nearly lethal. By comparison, this set felt like a footnote, despite Tommy’s fully-engaged smarmy grins and the band’s impressive unity.
Following them was another grind-related spectacle—and a much more appealing one at that—in Pennsylvania’s Genghis Tron, a group arguably spawned of the same Generation-X cynicism but with a dramatically different outcome. Genghis Tron exists in a weird, neon-addled techniverse where DayGlo light shows and 8-bit keyboard strobes collide with drum machines, shrieked lyrical vagaries, and guitarwork that oscillates between seizures of tapping and muscular power chords. As such, their glow-in-the-dark earplugs can only seem the practical choice.
Comprised of three members (two bespectacled keyboardists and a guitarist), this group caused quite a stir with their 2005 EP ‘Cloak of Love’ and managed to land a deal with Relapse Records a couple years after. They are now touring in support of ‘Board Up The House’, so their set consisted of mostly that new material, but some older tracks appeared, such as the landmark ‘Arms’, which remains a fan favorite. They seem to appeal to musicians as well, considering how ‘Board Up…’ was produced by Converge’s Kurt Ballou and features artwork from Baroness’s John Baizley.
Their set, though dazzling to behold, would have felt like novelty were it not for the melody and reflective poignancy scattered throughout. Beneath their ADD patchwork exterior, the young Genghis Tron have already developed a keen awareness of their audience’s limits. We are pushed to the brink of our tolerance by a thousand manic hands that suddenly halt and catch hold of us before we fall (i.e. get fed up and push the stop button), revealing a new beauty in the expanse below that cannot be seen from the safety of solid ground.
At least, these were the hallucinations their set induced, short though it was at 20 minutes. They were bogged down at the beginning by their gear, which was quite elaborate indeed and included a complex arrangements of lights that flashed rhythmically during their set, providing the only illumination for the entire venue. This delay may have worked out in their favor, though, leaving their set long enough to draw into a trance but not long enough to lull us to sleep or (completely) overload our senses.
Next to the stage were Baroness, who entranced the audience just as handily but in a manner quite opposed to Genghis Tron’s electrobabble. Guitarist/vocalist John Baizley began the set with a brief solo exposition heavy on the delay and reverb, with fellow guitarist Brian Blickle soon layering in his open major chords that define the band’s folksy vibe. Each guitarist wielded a off-white Les Paul with equally rich tones and what appeared to be brand new strings, but the two were as different as the men who played them. John was a shaggy fellow with long hair, wiry beard, and an old Godflesh T-shirt; his guitar’s strings stuck out haphazardly from the head, the pick-guard had been removed, and between the two humbuckers he’d hot-rodded in a third and covered it with duct tape. Brian, on the other hand, was a clean cut fellow, dressed fashionably, if simply, and his guitar was clean enough to sneak back onto a display wall with ease.
Their bassist, Summer Welch, was another surprise—a dark man in combat boots, cut-off jeans, a sleeveless Nachtmystium shirt, a duct-tape sheathe holding a dagger at his waist, and a Mjolnir around his neck. When he played, he stood rigidly and kicked a foot back with each thrash of his head, and during his few vocal parts, his entire body tensed up as the veins stood out from his neck and his head tilted up to meet the mic.
Their looks took nothing away from Baroness’s performance, though, which was as expansive and evocative live as it is on record. Through a wall of Marshall-amped guitars, John’s voice fought to be heard, supported on occasion by Summer’s or Brian’s equally throaty rumbles. On his simple kit in the background, Allen brought his dynamic touch to the performance and towards the end engaged in an extended instrumental interplay with John that swelled from power chords and smashing toms to tinkling sweeps near the bridge and light patterns on the ride’s bell.
The audience responded with great enthusiasm, for the most part appearing to be quite familiar with Baroness, and we were all disappointed to see them leave, though some with reservation. Standing directly front and center, about halfway through their set I realized just how remarkably loud they were, and had spent their last 15 minutes fashioning makeshift earplugs from a piece of paper in my pocket. Although we cheered quite loudly when they left, I noticed others had shared my concern—though often more inelegantly, with toilet paper.
Following them were The Red Chord, who pulled the audience from its warm trance with a thorough, modern drubbing. The members had to gall us a bit towards the beginning—vocalist Guy proclaiming, “Wake the fuck up!” a few times—but by their set’s halfway point most of us were quite invigorated. Aside from Converge, The Red Chord had brought out the most fans that evening, many of them eager to sing along and sparked a fierce circle pit with reverberations five rows deep.
I should admit here to not being a great fan of the band’s, and haven’t followed them closely since their standout debut, ‘Fused Together In Revolving Doors’. Their collective performance was certainly energetic enough to attract my attention, however, with each member contributing a distinct personality and undeniable energy. Guy, their burly vocalist, and the red-bearded bassist Greg were particularly focused on getting the crowd engaged, reaching all sides of the stage and gesturing to members in the front rows. From a showman’s perspective, they succeeded in style—invigorating a crowd, acknowledging their tourmates, giving energy as they received it, and playing a wide range of crowd-pleasing material.
Aside from the songs from ‘Fused Together…’, though, I just wasn’t all that enthralled. After that debut, The Red Chord’s sound smoothed out: the vocals lost their gurgling edge, the songwriting became more deliberate, and the off-the-wall vibe that had so driven their first album began to fade into stereotypical deathcore. Instead of setting the bar for the genre, The Red Chord now seem to be stuck in the morass of interchangeable bravado that so burdens the modern scene.
Even if the band’s fans weren’t as sour as me on this respect, it was clear that The Red Chord’s best response still came from their early songs, such as ‘That Certain Special Ugly’ and fan favorite ‘Dreaming in Dog Years’, which had many in the front rows shouting along to its climax. When they left the stage, the applause of their fans was strong, but still couldn’t completely drown out a heckler or two and the more incriminating silence from others.
The next and final band would bring us all back together with a chaotic and off-the-cuff performance to do their name proud. Converge. During this final layover the stage was cleared of its excess stacks and heads, leaving the beautiful gear of Kurt Ballou and Nate Newton to stand alone. Kurt’s guitars were a dramatic departure from the matte black Ibanez look of The Red Chord, each of his with colors and shapes that evoked images of 1960’s Cadillacs with the sweeping tailfins and baby blue paint jobs. His gear was equally fine—two BadCat heads matched with red and green Emperor stacks—and Nate’s Orange heads were also drawing some admiring looks.
Even if we all had such an array, none of us could play it quite like Converge does, though, and Kurt drove this point home when he emerged and took up his guitar. He began the set solo with the riff from ‘Plagues’, which grinds along like a rusted hurdy-gurdy. The other two instrumentalists followed, each receiving a cheer, but nothing comparable to the swell that went up at the arrival of Converge’s most recognizable and prominent member, Jacob Bannon.
Jacob leapt spryly to the stage, moving with confidence but no clear sense of direction, as if he was simply too energetic to stand still. Wreathed in tattoos from wrist to neck and beyond, he looked especially dramatic this evening in a Deathwish shirt (his own record label) with patterns and colors as bold as his ink. With a perfunctory wave of his hand, ‘Plagues’ kicked into full gear, and from thereon in, Reggie’s was a madhouse.
Shortly after ‘Plagues’, Jacob charged to the center stage monitor, directly in front of me, hefted it upon its side and pushed it away so that he might stand directly next to the crowd, even on them at times, as they reached for him. Occasionally, he was so close that I had to turn my head around to see him, standing on the barrier with arms outstretched. Between this and the crowd’s frenzy, I hardly had a chance to take any photos at all, and spent much more of the set trying to keep the camera from being jostled to bits. With Jacob towering over the front rows, the ‘no moshing’ rule was completely discarded; fans fought, shoved, and leapt upon one another with abandon in an attempt to reach Jacob, who would often thrust his microphone into the sea of mouths. Many who sang along knew the lyrics, and those who didn’t just screamed along in a wordless catharsis.
Jacob broke intermittently between songs to thank us all for our support, to remind us of the second show on Sunday, and in some cases to dedicate a song or comment briefly on its message. He spoke as he walked, no time or effort wasted, and each word had the heartfelt candidness that has come to characterize him as a man and lyricist.
In this chaotic a setting, I could only focus on the other members when Jacob would retreat to the back of the stage now and again to give them room to take charge. None of them spend much time moving around, but they all exude such natural presence and intensity that it was unnecessary to do so. Kurt is especially remarkable, leaping from chord to dirty chord, snarling and wrenching his guitar about. All three instrumentalists were superb, contributing to the barely restrained cacophony that is so uniquely their own with alacrity.
The set had been shortened due to some delays, which forced the band to hurry their delivery. All things considered, their set was still a fine survey of their newer works and included, among others: ‘Plagues’, ‘No Heroes’, ‘Lonewolves’, ‘Eagles Become Vultures’, ‘Held Under’, ‘The Broken Vow’, ‘Black Cloud’, ‘Last Light’, and couple old tracks including ‘Conduit’ (much more devastating with the band’s modern production than on record), before closing with ‘Concubine’ , which drove the crowd to even greater, stage-diving madness.
After their set ended, too soon for us all, the dazed audience began to filter out into the street. Exhausted faces, ringing ears, and bloodstained paper towels in the bathroom told the night’s tale and of its explosive ending. Some stayed behind to speak with Jacob, and he graciously sat with the crowd for as long as there were hands left to shake, eyes left to meet, and thanks left to give. This final gesture, above all else the band could do on the stage, drives home Jacob’s message and the spirit of the band. More than just a musical group, Converge is a champion of the downtrodden, giving them voice, enduring the slings and arrows of life and loss. For this sacrifice, our chance to shake his hand and offer thanks was alone worth the price of admission.
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