North American Khaos 2011 in Vancouver
by Mage on 2011-10-18Commodore Ballroom - VancouverRating: 4 out of 5This show was held at the Commodore Ballroom, and I spent $44 on the ticket, which was to be expected because I imagine that it is very costly to rent such a large venue.
Taiwanese Chthonic kicked off the evening with their melodic/symphonic black/death sound. Unfortunately, the excessive bass frequencies made it very difficult for me to hear the erhu, which is the Chinese instrument that their singer known as Left Face of Maradou played. The guitar riffs were also drowned out. Their guitarist, the Infernal, played some great solos though. I had trouble following the songs in this set, probably due to the poor sound quality. Again, it may have been due to the same issue with poor sound, but I almost thought I could hear a core sound in some of the songs–that's not always a bad thing though; sometimes breakdowns can be effective devices in songwriting. The vocalist and keyboards were audible. I felt that Left Face of Maradou had great stage presence and addressed the audience appropriately between songs. In one of the songs, I found that a brief harmonized keyboard and guitar duo bit was interesting.
Up next was Skeletonwitch, and the first thing I noticed was how great their sound was–I could actually hear their guitars, and the bass was not too overpowering. Their thrashing guitar riffs were strong and incorporated dual leads and harmonized stuff. Both guitarists Scott Hedrick and Nate Garnette played fast and melodic solos. I ended up talking to their merch guy and bought a t-shirt from them. Chance Garnette's vocals were kind of unique with the low, gargling sound that I grew to dig as the band continued playing their set.
DevilDriver then took the stage. I would like to mention that I am not really into their musical style, partly because of the core tendencies and the vocal delivery. To me, something about their sound is commercial/metalcore sounding, which may not be a bad thing if this is what the band is after. And in this set, the bass frequencies were once again too loud, and they drowned out the guitars. The core vocals by Bradley "Dez" Farfara sounded almost like scream-rapping. I hear people refer to this band as groove metal, and maybe it is because of the abundance of single note repetitive riffing that I noticed in their set. One thing that I do like about this band is some of the thrash tendencies, guitar leads, and and the heavy use of double kick in the drums. At one point, I thought I could hear keyboards but could not see any–it is possible that I was imagining things, or maybe they were using backing tracks. And I also heard a riff combined with a simple drum beat, and it sounded too much like industrial, which again is not my taste. But I'd like to commend their guitarist that shredded nice solos–not sure if it was Jeff or Mike who played them as I am not too familiar with the lineup.
Headliners Arch Enemy played a mixture of songs from the previous albums as well as from the current Khaos Legions album. In the first couple of songs, Angela's vocals
were buried, but that improved shortly after. Toward the end, the bass frequencies were too boomy, and at one point the drums were overpowering the rest of the mix. All of the members of this established band displayed good stage presence. They were musically appealing with their signature Amott dual guitars and solid rhythm section in Daniel's drums and Sharlee's bass. Both Christopher and Michael were swift and fluid with their leads. I was able to hear Sharlee's bass lines too, though I wish I could hear it better without so much boomy sound next time.
I was disappointed that Arch Enemy did not play their really old stuff, not even the stuff that was part of the rerecordings album The Root of All Evil. I was also hoping that they would play the one of my fave songs "Through the Eyes of a Raven" from Khaos Legions, but they did not. I guess they only have enough time to play so much. I was glad they played "Under Black Flags We March", one of my other fave songs of the new album. Angela even held up a black flag with the band's logo on it during that song, and I really dig the fills that Daniel did on this one too.
Surprisingly, the songs that I previously did not like actually lent well to a concert atmosphere–I could not help but sing along and headbang to them! Such songs included "Bloodstained Cross" and "No Gods No Masters." The poppish guitar riffs combined with the melodic chord progression of the "Bloodstained Cross" chorus still won with the catchy vocals and lyrics. I still was not as much into "No Gods..." because again it was kind of poppy, but I was still able to appreciate it live, and I recall singing along with the chorus. So I would give it to Arch Enemy for being able to do something right–after all, I did pay a large dollar for this show and still appreciated the songs I usually don't like!
Food was kinda expensive here. I wanted to buy veggie greens for $8 but I wanted to save money for a Skeletonwitch t-shirt, which was $30. And based on the quality of the food my friends ordered and ate, it looked like it would have been delicious. But I wish they had yam fries–now that would have hit the spot!
It is too bad that not as many metal shows are played at the Commodore anymore because it holds a LOT of people...I guess based on the above observations, it is too expensive for a lot of the lesser known acts to rent and too costly for the typical metalhead to fork out every time.