The Rim Of Hell

Last Tuesday everyone in my family (except for my oldest Jill who was recovering from the Butthole Surfers show the night before) took in the Hard Drive Live tour featuring the twin’s favorite band, All That Remains. This turned out to be an awesome concert experience!

First up was hardcore-ish act From Sword To Sunrise (or FSTS as they’re sometimes called) out of Spokane, Washington. Decent energy, good stage presence. Fairly straight-forward screamcore, but well done.

Next were the surprisingly melodic Maylene & The Sons of Disaster. What a name, right? Just call’em MATSOD. And no, there was no female singer named Maylene fronting this six piece out of Birmingham, Alabama – as I understand it the name is a Ma Barker reference.  Anyhow, the boys’ appearance reminds me a little of the band Stillwater from the movie ‘Almost Famous’ but their sound is very heavy southern.  With THREE guitarists (holy Iron Maiden, Batman!) I was really digging their multi-layered rhythms and singable harmonies.  A big surprise and a group I would definitely see again.

After Maylene, we had the always enjoyable Goth/Alt. metal band Lacuna Coil from Milan, Italy. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen these folks, but they never fail to impress. Plus I kinda have a thing for singer Cristina Scabbia – hell, who doesn’t? Still, their newer stuff is dark, heavy and plays well live. Bassist Marco Coti Zelati had injured his arm, so the band openly admitted to playing along with his previously taped bass parts. No biggie really, and it was cool when his bandmates yelled for him to join them at the autograph table after the show. Gotta love the cohesive team vibe.

Headliners All That Remains completed the lineup with another piledriving performance, complete with an amazing wall of death in the moshpit at the end of show. Kudos to singer Phil Labonte as he orchestrated the maneuver for reminding everyone “No one leaves the floor injured. Take care of each other”. It worked, I didn’t see a drop of blood. If you’re unfamiliar with the wall of death, think of ‘red rover’ done to a metal song. Yeah, pretty brutal.

After the show, and thanks to my buddy Courtney, we were actually able to get backstage to the meet & greet for ATR. This was a blast, and totally worth the lack of sleep to see my girls chatting up bassist Jeanne Sagan, goofing around with guitarist Oli Herbert, and hugging the stuffing out of Phil Labonte. I gotta hand it to the band, every member seemed down to earth & appreciative of their fans. At least three times I heard one of them say “We’re just normal people. We’re just like you”. Very, very cool and what I hope is a wonderful memory for my kids – to be able to meet your favorite band and find out they’re decent folks to boot!

Great show, definitely one to remember.