Last night I caught one of the more excellent shows: Testament, with Overkill, Flotsam & Jetsam, and 4ARM, at Emo’s East. THAT is a lineup.

Daughter came with me. It was her first metal show, first club show, and was quite an experience. More below.

4ARM

Never heard of these guys, but when I saw they were the opening act I checked them out. They were pretty good, so I made it a point to ensure to catch them. I recall at a prior Testament show missing most of opening act Lazarus A.D.’s set, and was bummed about that because they’re pretty awesome. Didn’t want to repeat that mistake.

4ARM was pretty awesome as well. They are still a little green, but are tight and played hard. They certainly know how to fly the thrash metal flag. I will pick up their album.

If you need any more testimony about them tho, they managed to win the crowd over enough to get a pit going. That’s quite impressive for an opening act!

Flotsam & Jetsam

Here’s my embarrassing admission: I don’t know much about F&J. Here’s what I know:

1. They were Jason Newsted’s band prior to Metallica
2. “No Place for Disgrace” has cool album artwork
3. I was exposed to albums like “When the Storm Comes Down” and “Cuatro” back in my college radio days but never did anything with them.
4. Only song I can name is “I Live, You Die” because I had it on some old “Metal Massacre” compilation. I did like it.

That’s it. I just never got into them one way or the other. After seeing them live, I feel sorely remiss. They were awesome, despite some nagging guitar problems (not sure what it was… amp problems?). I need to go back and rediscover them.

Overkill

Overkill is a band I’ve known about since forever, but never saw live until now. Just one thing or another kept me from seeing them. I’m glad I was finally able to. Truly it was the fact this gig was Testament AND Overkill that made this a must-attend event.

I was bummed their set time was so short, and it was evident they were too (Blitz even commented as such). But hopefully they will be back through as a headliner and wreck our necks for 90 minutes. They made the most of their set tho, hitting it hard and fast, and you’d pray to God it never stops. Just a fucking awesome set, with all the right attitude and effort. You’d expect nothing else from these vets.

1. Come and Get It
2. Rotten to the Core
3. Wrecking Crew
4. Bring Me the Night
5. Electric Rattlesnake
6. Ironbound
7. Elimination
8. Fuck You

I think I got the setlist right. I really enjoyed it, but somehow I suspect future shows may be “more of the same”. I have seen live videos of Overkill and much of the stage whatnot was fairly similar. I mean sure, you’ve got your groove, you’ve got your thing, but it almost seems too comfortable here. Hopefully if they are headliners things will be looser and a better show.

Nevertheless, the shirt I bought was an Overkill tour shirt, since I have no Overkill t-shirts.

Testament

Headliners, Testament, put on a killer show, like they always do. At the new Emo’s, the stage is so much larger and they were able to put on a better show. Big curtains, ramps, drum riser, lights, everything. The set flowed well, with a mix of old and new. My buddy W described the setlist as a donut, because it was around the edges and no middle. That is, songs came from early albums and late albums, but not much from the middle (Low? Souls? Ritual?).

If there’s anything Testament’s set proved, it’s that Gene Hoglan is a drumming god. Just an amazing drummer. Of course, he really shined on songs from “Dark Roots” since those were his drum lines. But even the older stuff sounded awesome with him. You may not always notice these things, but the difference the right drummer makes is huge.  Gene is incredible.

1. Rise Up
2. More than Meets the Eye
3. Burnt Offerings
4. Native Blood
5. True American Hate
6. Dark Roots of Earth
7. Into the Pit
8. Practice What You Preach
9. Riding the Snake
10. Eyes of Wrath
11. Trial by Fire
12. The Haunting
13. The New Order
14. D.N.R.
15. Three Days in Darkness
16. The Formation of Damnation

I was happy they played “3 Days”. We wondered if they would play it or not, given the obvious unfulfilled date, but that doesn’t make the song any less epic.

Of course, “Rise Up” was the opener, which is just a perfect opening song. I was happy to see so much from Dark Roots and The Gathering. Curious why the middle albums weren’t represented tho… even just “Souls of Black”. *shrug*  Only so many songs you can have.

Emo’s

This is the new Emo’s East. It’s my first show at the venue, which is really not my first show at the venue… because the new Emo’s is the old Backroom. But while the building is the same, they renovated and did a great job changing things around. It’s MUCH bigger (they removed the divider wall), and the stage is “on the side”. But it’s a much bigger stage, taller, a lot more room. Heck, compared to the old Emo’s, this place is a palace.

Sound was pretty good. I happen to have a SPL Meter on my iPhone and it clocked in around 110 dB max. Was a good teachable moment for Daughter as to why ear plugs are good. Yes, we both wore them all night.

Overall tho, I was really impressed with the new venue. It was comfortable, sizable, very good for shows. Drink prices weren’t crazy. The staff was VERY cool all night long.

Daughter

So this was Daughter’s first metal show, first club show, first a bunch of things. She’s not a huge metal fan, but of course with Dad always listening to the stuff she’s gotten exposure. And as she’s grown older, Dad plays more stuff, she’s more into music herself so she explores more.

There is no question she dug the show. In speaking to her about it afterwards she was quite stoked and really wanted to get into it, but I she just had her reserves for various reasons (not to share here). It was cool tho to see my Daughter standing in front of me… then raising the horns in the air. 🙂

Being a drummer, her prime reason for attending was to see Gene Hoglan play. Yeah, we had thought about getting up closer to the stage, but the pit was intense and the crush at the barricades was huge. Lots of people trying to crowd surf and stage dive (tho Emo’s staff did their best to keep that minimized), so that would have been a bunch of kicks to the head. For a first show, not really an ideal thing. We were standing just in front of the sound boards, which had barricades around them, plus a “track” that obviously covered the cable runs. That worked to her advantage giving her a couple more inches of height to better see above/through the crowd. We were pretty much centered on the stage, so she got to see a good show.

And she got exposed to all the things typical with a metal show. Lots of old metalheads, drunk dudes, pot smoke (no smoking it, natch; just it’s in the air around you), people throwing stuff. To that end folks… I don’t know why you choose to throw shit like ice and beer cans, but fucking stop. Thankfully none hit Daughter in the face, but Wife’s gotten hit and cut in the face (just under her eye) from flung ice. Stop doing stupid shit like that — I’ll be happy to peg you in the face with a beer can if you don’t understand why that shit is stupid and you need to stop doing it. I digress.

Bottom line is Daughter had a ton of fun. She got to see Gene — in fact, she got to see Gene standing on the street corner as we were pulling into the venue! Was kinda cool to just see him being a person like anyone else (not just as a drum god!). We got to have a fun time together. Just a grand time for both of us.

Only bummer for her was that we were home before midnight. If we got home at 12:01 she would have been happy, but it was a bummer to get to stay out past bedtime and not at least “come home the next day”. 🙂

And over at The Metal Files, Sean has his review of the show. \m/