As I mentioned in my very first review, it took me more than 2 years to
attend my first show in Cleveland. Thus the fact that it took me only
several months to get to the second one can be considered as a relative
success. We had a three-person line-up this time, but it was a little
bit different from the original one as the dude who went with us to the
first show (David 'The King') suddenly 'changed his mind' just a couple
of days before the show and thus we were forced to find a substitution
for him. As a result of this David's disappearance (ha-ha, he thought
Spineshank
Taken from www.spineshank.net
Metal is for wimps) we took with us Dima 'The Grim Reaper' - the person
that had nothing to do with metal whatsoever, but was kind enough to buy
David's ticket. The strange thing, however, is that he actually liked
the show (OK, we need a little update here. 6 (!!!) months later Dima
finally confessed that he did NOT like the show and even called it
'pornography' (!). Was he afraid to hurt my feelings or what??? :-)).
Now to the bands. There were 4 bands that represented what MTV likes to
call 'New Face of Metal' or whatever: SPINESHANK, HED PE, SYSTEM OF A
DOWN, FEAR FACTORY. SPINESHANK kicked the things off and they were
actually the band that I liked the most. Well, OK, I did not really like
them that much, but as they played first, I still had a lot of energy to
use and thus was able to respond most positively to their music. They
were better than KORN, but on the other hand, who is not??? Fast
forward, and here we have HED PE - aka as the worst band of the night.
Their music, although quite moshable, was very generic, but it was not
their music that made them such a disgrace to our ears. Actually it was
their rapping spokesperson (I can not really call him a singer) with his
NY/LA attitude that enraged us a whole fucking lot. If he likes to be
called a motherfucker and get fucked by everybody and everywhere, it's,
certainly, his personal problem, but we did not really appreciate his
|
dirty words and his tough guy manners. Whatever. Up next was SYSTEM OF A
DOWN, whom I was kind of interested in, because they are Armenian and
Fear Factory
Taken from www.fearfactory.com
thus I expected them to incorporate some of their national heritage in
their music. Did not really happen though. Their strange presence was
mildly entertaining as they had some strange masks on and also moved on
the stage quite claustrophobically. For whatever reason their vocalist
reminded me of CYPRESS HILL, ha-ha! As for the music, it was all the
same stuff we, here in States, are so used to. Another group
representing this 'Children of the KORN' trend. I know all these bands
always say that they don't rip
off anybody, that they are unique blah-blah-blah, but to me they all
sound the same. It's just a shame that while bands like these get pushed
by idiotic major labels, some very deserving bands will never get a
record deal because their music is not 'commercially appealing'. On the
other hand, do we really want our favorite bands to be 'music slaves' of
global corporations? Unfortunately, FEAR FACTORY, who were the main
reason for us coming to the show, managed to keep our attention only for
the duration of
6 songs. It was not exactly their fault, but more of us being extremely
tired by the end of the show. We spent 4 hours standing on the same spot
and could not stay there any longer without risking our precious health
(we were not tough back then :-)). FEAR FACTORY was FEAR FACTORY that
day, I have practically nothing to add here. If you know them, you don't
need me to describe their music; if you have no idea who they are, I can
not really say that you are missing a whole lot here. This music is OK
to listen to once in a while, but by no means it's something to write
home about :-)
P.S. At least no one stole their truck this time!
Andy.
|