Lamb of God

w/ DevilDriver, Shadows Falls & High on Fire

Luna Park Big Top, Sydney – 12th December, 2009

Openers High on Fire started off the night with a bang – having pretty solid sound for a 3-piece. Unfortunately they suffered with poor sound throughout the set, and it was a rare moment where I could hear the guitar at all above the drums and bass. Despite this they were energetic and enjoyable, delivering a short set of fun, if slightly basic Stoner Metal. They interacted with the crowd and the crowd responded well, with even a circle or two forming – an achievement for a 3-piece opening band without a full light set. During one song, the front man/guitarist’s guitar cut out and he had to leave the stage for quite some time before the problem was fixed. The band however remained professional despite the technical difficulty, and bassist and drummer finishing the song then extending it into a bit of a jam until the front man returned. The crowd remained supportive throughout this lengthy technical hiccup, which was a testament to the easy and casual relationship the band built with theaudience.

Next to take the stage was Shadows Fall, and fuck did they take it with style. A wall of sound made of crunchy riffs, solid bass and roaring drums quickly got heads banging and circle pits opening up. The crowd was then stirred into a frenzy by front man Bryan Fair leaping around the stage with his feral screams and the most awesome dreads in the history of the universe. The intensity and excitement of the first song did not dissipate from there either, no, it only grew. What impressed me about Shadows Fall was how quickly they built such a great relationship with the audience. Opening bands tend to suffer from the fact that usually most people in the crowd aren’t there to see them – they’re just a warm-up for the ‘real’ show.

Shadows Fall, however, swiftly obliterated this barrier, and by the second song, Fair was crowd surfing here there and everywhere. Something that helped the band build  this relationship with the audience was their sheer amount of crowd involvement. At several points Fair would come out with a video camera, beckoning us to put on a  show for the lens. About halfway through the set he started up a chant in the crowd, challenging us to scream “Shadows Motherfuckin’ Goddamn Fall!” better than the  previous city they’d visited (Brisbane). As well as all that, we were encouraged to sing along to a brand new song “A Public Execution” by teaching the best line in the song: Fuck It All! A solemn moment was when the band played the intro to “A New Level” by almighty Pantera in tribute to Dimebag on the anniversary of his death; and as a  serious Pantera fan, I greatly appreciated this. After a climactic final song Shadows Fall triumphantly parted the stage, and the now extremely sweaty and excited crowd awaited the first of the headliners Devildriver.

Devildriver entered the stage with an eerie intro, which blended seamlessly into End of the Line – a great song full of energy and a good opening number. However throughout the show Devildriver were plagued with what I perceived to be not particularly good sound. For most of the set I was having serious difficulty hearing Dez’s vocals, this was a shame as it put a black mark on an otherwise great performance. Devildriver are full of vicious attitude, and watching from the gallery it was easy to see how that viciousness rubbed off onto the crowd. There wasn’t a large amount of crowd involvement, which as a shame because this was a crowd that knew all the words to all the songs and were eager to please – they would have done anything Dez Fafara told them to. I found this lack of crowd interaction was disappointing, because such things are important to me, as they truly distinguish a live performance from playing it loud on your CD player: you are actually interacting with the band. Despite this, the crowd were more than satisfied and gave a great response, singing along to most songs word-for-word (except for a bloke next to me who just kinda shouted in time  without actually saying any words).

Musically, the band’s performance was great (besides the sound mixing issues) – the guitar work was excellent, solos and all. Bass and drums were spot on, which is important in a rhythmic band like DevilDriver. Highlights of the set were “End of the Line” and “Clouds Over California”, and overall it was quite a good performance, however I truly felt it could have been better.

It was a bit of a wait until Lamb of God came on, and people were starting to get restless. However the grumbling vanished the moment the lights dimmed for the final
band of the night – the one we (or at least I) had been waiting for. The intro was “The Passing” off the most recent album Wrath, and as the band members took the stage the roars of the audience got louder and louder as the intro built towards what everyone knew was coming, and with a blinding flash the battering ram of sound that is “In Your Words” began. It was a great song to open up on, and within seconds circle pits were opening up. I quickly picked up that their sound was of significantly better mixing than Devildriver, which just adds so much to a performance. From “In Your Words”, Lamb of God went straight into “Set To Fail” – one of my new favourite Lamb of God songs and a highlight of the night.

Throughout the set the band didn’t move much, with the exception of Randy who was leaping around the stage like the maniac Lamb of God’s front man should be, and his vocals were on the ball. Technically, the musicians were in excellent form and the show sounded tight, but not over-rehearsed. The solos were very good, with the exception of Mark Morton’s solo that was performed between two songs, which in my opinion was kind of tuneless and not overly impressive. Apart from this though the set was awesome, however some more older stuff would have been nice, as nearly half the set was composed from songs off Wrath.

I personally would have like to see more of Sacrament on the setlist – only “Walk With Me In Hell” and “Redneck” were in the show. However Wrath is undeniably a great album and so were the songs selected off it, as were those selected from previous albums. The intro to “Omerta” was a lot of fun, and most people knew the words. There was the now-widely used ‘encore’ when the band leaves the stage prematurely and then return after some routine chanting from the crowd… the whole thing is a little silly, but nobody cares along as the band keeps playing do they? And what a great ‘encore’ it was with Redneck and Black Label to finish the show – Redneck forming one of the largest circle pits I’ve ever had the honour of being in.

The night finished with the crowd both fully satisfied and utterly spent. Overall it was a great show; my friend who I attended the concert with is not hugely into metal, and had not heard any Lamb of God – he was not even aware that the other bands existed. Despite this he enjoyed himself almost as much as I did, which goes to show that the performances really were great. However, as far as the greatest performance of the night goes, and you’re welcome to disagree with me on this, but I believe Shadows Fall were simply fantastic, and the next album I buy will most certainly have their name on it.

Review written by Cameron Hawthorne.