The Palladium, Worcester MA
I went to the Worcester Palladium to see the “Welcome to Hell” tour, Worcester being the scene of many of my local metal escapades. The ante would be raised on this night since THE ACACIA STRAIN call central Massachusetts their home turf and they always pack the house with their crazy fans. Their name was even on the marquee of the venue which normally isn’t done for a second on the bill act. I really don’t care for I DECLARE WAR, CHELSEA GRIN or VEIL OF MAYA so I showed up late to the venue as massive ACACIA banner was going up. The place was nearly sold out for this tour which is impressive with this economy. I think only the SUICIDAL TENDENCIES and HANK III shows were more full of the people in the last year and I am always glad to see a house full of people supporting metal. Even if that means there are a lot of scene kids in the house it still makes me happy so please support your local scenes at all costs!
I found a good spot and settled in as a huge cheer went up as the lights went down. Kids were already moshing to the into music and crowd surfing. They walked on stage to a heroes welcome as frontman Vincent Bennett shouted “we’re the ACACIA STRAIN from right here and we came to rock so let’s do this!”. Then the band launched into their opener, the grinding “Beast”. The crowd was feeling it with a lot of moshing and less of the invisible ninja type stuff I usually expected. Next came the equally crushing “The Hills Have Eyes”. Bennett is one of the best vocalists in deathcore with his gravely voice and great on stage charisma. He had the crowd eating out his hand the entire performance. Classic track “Whoa Shut It Down” followed and had about the sickest breakdown of the night. Considering the loss of founding member DL (he still writes and records with them, doesn’t tour) on guitar the band has soldiered on nicely. Tim Cavalleri and Antonio Diaz are solid players, holding down the detuned grooves that are the foundation of the band. They both keep the energy up high as well with their performance. Drummer Kevin Boutot as usual just pummels the drums and allows the songs to shine by not over playing, which is key for this style of music. Bassist Jack Strong has strong bass chops and provides good backing vocals on a lot of songs. As the band drilled through one smasher after another like “See You Next Tuesday” “Ramirez” “Bay of Pigs” and “Jonestown” they were on their way to putting one one of the best performances I have seen them put on, or anyone at this venue in terms of action, energy and attitude. Closing out with the explosive “JFC/Carbomb” they we joined for the last few minutes of their set by the one and only DL which was really cool.
Set list:
Beast
The Hills Have Eyes
Whoa! Shut It Down
See You Next Tuesday
Ramirez
Dr. Doom
Bay of Pigs
Jonestown
JFC/Carbomb
WHITECHAPEL was getting ready to close out the night next as they changed over the stage. I started reflecting on having seen them rise to prominence from the underground in the last few years. Having seen them play in a tiny room on a little stage at the Scion Rock Fest (Atlanta) a few years ago with a mix of old school deathmetal fans and few core kids, to their big side stage appearance at Mayhem Festival 2009 to the crowd from tonight made up of mostly underagers. They have scaled the heights of the underground and have become very popular within the deathcore sub-genre. When last year’s album A New Era of Corruption (Metal Blade) dropped I thought it was good, but not great. They always put on an energetic show live so I basically knew what to expect which was more recent jams and less older material.
Taking the stage in darkness and the raising the lights at the start of “Devolver” just blew the lid off the place. The six man crew led by vocalist Phil Bozeman did a great job of hyping up the already pumped up crowd that was moshing and crowd surfing over the barricade throughout their set. He is a fine frontman with a beastly, harsh voice. Second cut “Breeding Violence” was equally heavy and again had a multitude of breakdowns. Next track “The Darkest Day of Man” is indicative of most of the deathcore genre and the majority of their songs alternate from thrash riffs to brash grooves that make you nod your head in agreement about how much the song rules. This song best highlights the bands three guitar approach of layers of riffs. Alex Wade, Zach Householder and Ben Savage all split up the rhythms and textural parts while Savage steps out for the leads. “Reprogrammed to Hate” is one of the band’s best songs from New Era… even thought I thought the live version was lacking slightly next to the original that features THE DEFTONES Chino Moreno. New drummer Ben Harclerode killed it most of the night with his wildly fast feet and triggered drums. He was especially impressive on the older material lie “Prostatic Fluid Asphyxiation” and “Vicer Exciser” later in the night.
As night wore on however, it became apparent that the band is much more about where they are musically now than where they started from. That is a bit disappointing in my opinion because while the scene kids eat up the bass drops and scripted mosh parts, the original promise of the band as a hybrid of death metal and deathcore goes unfulfilled. On newer songs like “End of Flesh”, “Unnerving” “Single File to Dehumanization” the band is goes through the motions with formulaic songs that seem like the same song over and over. On the other hand “Murder Sermon” was on the of the best songs of the set, full of original riffs and character. It would have been nice for Vince from ACACIA to come back out and do the song like he did on the album, but he did not appear. The band finished the show with an encore of “This is Exile” and the show which was high on energy and action, but less on originality was over.
Set List:
Devolver
Breeding Violence
The Darkest Day of Man
Reprogrammed to Hate
Prostatic Fluid Asphyxiation
End of Flesh
Unnerving
Death Becomes Him
Vicer Exciser
Eternal Refuge
Murder Sermon
Single File to Dehumanization
Encore:
Of Legions/This is Exile
Keith Chachkes
