Ever have those proud parent moments? Seeing my 16 year old son walking out of the Meshuggah pit, well that’s one for me. Now before we get too far into this, I must say that I’m not a massive fan of either Thy Art or Meshuggah, so I’m not going to be able to tell you the complete set list.
My son is a Thy Art Is Murder fan so for his birthday he ask to go see them and Meshuggah. So we braved the traffic, Sydney while it’s raining is bad enough but there was also some relatively unknown singer in town her name is Adele or something like that…haha, so there was plenty of people around but we got into town with plenty of time, had something to eat and waited patiently in line………the all ages line, which is pretty cool seeing all the young one listening to the metals and knowing that that was you not so long ago.
The venue was The Enmore Theatre, it was my first time going to this particular venue and I’d have to say it wAbramis Brama, Magnolia och Kometen (Swedish version)orked really well, same sticky carpet as other venues but it had a good slope down to a relatively flat “pit floor”, bar up the back and a balcony.
Thy Art? if you haven’t seen them before, I’d highly recommend it, this was my second time seeing them live and they really do know how to put on a live performance. The singer “CJ” very publicly quit the band about 18 months ago citing financial issues as the reason he left the band, this was his return to the stage with the band and openly told the crowd that he had had a heavy drug addiction that had consumed him for the past 17 years and this was the first time in a long time that he was clean, to this the crowd gave a huge cheer. I think even if you hated Thy Art Is Murder, you could really appreciate the guys honesty and had to applaud his achievement.
The “buy in” these guys get from the crowd is not something normally seen from a local Australian band or most opening acts really, which is something really cool. And it’s also really cool watching the young people rocking out so hard to metal.
CJ worked the crowd really well, making mention and taking the piss out of the people sitting in the balcony, also making mention of the people that were hating on them for not being Meshuggah giving them a well earned “go fuck yourselves”, but over all I think they were a great opening act and they were also very well received by the crowd as they blistered through “The Purest Strain Of Hate”, “Holy War” and “Shadow Of Eternal Sin”
Now Meshuggah are a completely different beast and by beast I mean FUCKING BEAST!!! completely black stage then all at once they hit the music perfectly in sync as the lights fire in life.
I’ve seen plenty of bands live before but Meshuggah have to take the prize for the tightest sound and the best light show, no fire n shit like Slipknot but all back light, flashes and colours you’d hate to be epileptic, the only criticism I could give would be that the vocals weren’t loud enough but even on their albums the music is definitely the highlight.
The crowd reaction to these guys was fanatical, huge cheers after every song! The songs I knew were “Bleed”, “Clockworks” and “Demiurge” but they gave a solid hour and a half of straight up ball tearing brutality.
I’m not sure if English is an issue or they just don’t interact with the crowd but the guys didn’t really say much but I had to laugh when Jens said “have a good night and please don’t die because we want to see you again”.
Metaldad \m/
