I showed up around 7:30 I think and had missed one or two of the opening bands. When I showed up I saw a few friends in the parking lot and said what's up to the promotor Ivan and the Vault's security guard Fick before heading inside. $14 is a bit steep for a metal/hardcore show if you ask me but then again In This Moment are kinda big so that probably inflates things.
Local band Oh, Dae Su was setting up when I arrived and it didn't take long for them to start playing. They had a sizable crowd who was clearly there stoked to see them, kids around junior or senior year in high school age I would guess. So I'm guessing they're probably a high school band. Musically, I actually really enjoyed this band. Despite occasional flares to the more 'scene' type metalcore style, I thought they did a good job of playing dark-sounding yet modern metal that was clearly metal and not just a scene hybrid like alot of other local bands. That said, they weren't boring thrash or predictable In Flames/Children Of Bodom type stuff either; they had a definite early death metal sound. The singer had a high-pitched kind-of schreechy voice if I remember correctly. Of particular dopeness was the fact that at the slower quasi-breakdown parts, kids started MOSHING like what's supposed to happen at metal concerts...I was in the back with some hardcore kids who started lamenting "what...? what is this, it's the breakdown!!", just totally bumming that during their usual time to shine kids were actually doing something in the middle of the circle and there was no room for HC dancing. Also, the band had a female bassist, which is always nice to see. Even cooler was that she didn't appear to be a stereotypical goth/emo/HotTopic metal girl, she seemed more like a hippie chick or something. I might be wrong, I spent more time watching the pit than the stage but the music was refreshingly good especially for the local scene.
I went back to my car during the break and my brother from another mother David was just arriving. We shared a beer in his car and talked about some bullshit before heading in for the next band, called Service Interruption. I don't know anything about this band and after seeing them I don't care about learing anything more. They were just lame. It's not that they played badly; to the contrary, they were all pretty good musicians, especially the drummer, and towards the end especially the lead guy busted out an interesting solo. But they were just so obviously musically sheltered...they were trying to play some sort of alternative-funk-rock like the Chili Peppers or something, and we've all seen about a million failed local bands trying to do that crap, right? It never goes well. Kids were straight up joking them in the moshpit, having like a joke dance contest or something. Some kid even went in an busted out some half-rate breakdancing to everyone's delight. Luckily the band members onstage seemed oblivious of the lack of love they were receiving and the be-sunglassed singer bobbed his head like they were actually owning the place. About halfway through their set David leaned to me and said "You made me stop drinking beer for this?" I think that sums it up pretty good actually.
When we retreated back outside, another close friend Jason had arrived. Jason's a notorious party pooper and of course he arrived immediately talking shit on the very idea of going to watch crappy metal bands. It wouldn't be the same without. We hung out for awhile until I realized the Black Path was probably already playing and another friend Ryan had just arrived. Ryan's cousin plays guitar in tonight's headliners, In This Moment, so he actually came with his mom. How sweet.
I had been wanting to see The Black Path for a short while now, because it has the former singer for The Final Burden who was a dope band and because the singer for my own band Melting Corpse, Alex, has been talking to that guy about our demo for a little while now. For some reason I thought they were supposed to like a more-metal version of The Final Burden's sound, but it was the exact opposite, they were like straight up hardcore. When I talked to Alex about this, he confirmed that he had heard it was supposed to be like straight-ahead hardcore, so I guess I was just in the wrong about that one. Anyway, despite being pretty much the opposite of my expectations, The Black Path put on a pretty fun show. They were really heavy and had really good fast parts as well. Dual singer thing with one guy who looked alot like Ramon from Hellbent at first doing standard HC vocals and the Final Burden dude doing more high-pitched screams. They were really danceable and clearly some of the HC kids there could have held it down a bit more than they were; I expected the pit to be a bit crazier than it was for them to be honest. At the end of the set they played a really good, if a bit too long, cover of "Fight for Your Right to Party" that everybody had fun with. I've actually always wanted to either cover that song HC style myself or see it done that way so that was a nice treat.
At this point me and Jason went back to the cars for a moment while the others waited at the venue for In This Moment to set up. After a few minutes, Jason got a call from David telling him that he should come into the venue right then because none of the security guards were paying attention; there had been a fight or two during The Black Path so I guess they were busy. So Jason left to sneak in while I finished the rest of a beer I had opened. I began chugging it but was getting kinda queasy so I took it easy until I began to think maybe I was taking too long and they were already playing. Upon looking back, I could have just texted one of my friends who was in there and told them to let me know when the band started playing, but that didn't occur to me at the time. I hurried up and went back to the venue only to find that the band's single roadie was still doing guitar checks.
A pet peeve of mine is bands taking forever to set up, and this particular time it was feeling just stupid. I could easily be out in the car enjoying another Pabst instead of standing around like an idiot in a venue where you can see the same shit from everywhere. But we waited. Me and David had some fun yelling out "Squirtle!" and "Syphilis!" while the guy was doing mic checks but that was about it. It took just way too long, even when the band was onstage they took like another 10 minutes.
In This Moment is not a very good band. I kinda liked their early unreleased stuff that Ryan got ahold of and the first album has some stuff that I like for the sheer quality of having heard it so many damn times, but this newer crap they played was just boring and by-the-numbers. During the entire set they only played one song I even knew, the title track from that first album "Beautiful Tragedy." Everything else was really boring, especially the gratuitous drum solo they had in the middle of their set that wasn't even impressive. God I hate lame drum solos.
That said, their singer is a pretty hot blonde chick who was wearing like a torn white dress i.e. the kind someone wears when they get abducted by King Kong...nice leg view is what I'm saying, especially when she stood high on this unnecessary podium thing to reach this ridiculously ornamented microphone stand they were using. It was like an upskirt fan's wildest dreams.
What was funny was that some of the HC kids who hadn't really been doing shit during The Black Path were getting all crazy during ITM even though they're such a girly fucking band. For chrissake they were selling signed headshots of Maria they're that much of half-rate sellouts!! It was just odd seeing this big gnarly-looking dudes getting all hard for In This Moment when a small little wanker like me was able to own the pit during a real hardcore band's set. Odd.
Anyway, at the beginning of their last song she talked about how she usually gets out into the middle of the pit for this one, but that this place was too small. Of course everybody was like "no! do it!" and they pushed out a table to the middle of the crowd for her to stand on while people circle pitted around her...that was probably the dopest part of their set.
All in all it was an alright night, but definitely not worth $14. Maybe $10. I would have been happy to see just Oh Dae Su and The Black Path at a smaller place for $5, but what can I do those dollars are gone now.
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