As per usual, I spent my early evening on this fine Wednesday playing a
little basketball with the lads; and not unlike Ice
Cube, I messed around and got a triple double (fouls, turnovers, missed
shots). I always kinda dread going to shows
after I've played ball because my legs are shot, but I assumed I would
have a couple of hours to recover and get ready
for the rock. The problem is, when I logged on to the Cat's
Cradle website to check the start time, it was listed as doors
at 6:30, show at 7:30!!! What in the holy hell is this, a Yanni
concert?!? Who starts a metal show this early? I was
completely confused and bewildered as to what was going on, but the
bottom line I was going to have to get on my
horse and get to getting if I wanted to see this show.
I finally got to the club around 9:15 or so, only to see a crew of
surly types setting up the stage for Mastodon.
I was
hoping to see at least the end of Kylesa's set, but I've seen them
before and I'm sure I'll get a chance to see them again.
On the plus side, my tired, basketball-worn old man legs wouldn't be
standing for very long tonight.
It wasn't the greatest show I've ever seen Mastodon play, but it was
still very good. I'm guessing a big reason I was a
little underwhelmed is because the entire first half of the show was
from their newest record "Crack the Skye", and I
have only listened to it a couple of times. With pretty much any
band, knowing the music makes the live experience
more enjoyable, but I find this to especially be the case with metal
music for whatever reason.
after about 45 minutes of only new songs, the band left the
stage...certainly, this wasn't the whole show was it? No it
wasn't; they were running this thing Broadway-style, with an
intermission between two sets...the first set being all new,
and the second set being all older songs. I'm terrible with song
names with this band in particular, but I know they
played a bunch of tracks off of "Leviathan" to help fulfill by "metal
songs about whales" needs. the crowd of almost
entirely dudes in black t-shirts got noticeably more animated for these
older, well-loved tracks, with no shortage of
devil horns thrown in the air both before AND after the song. And
we all know nothing is more metal than throwing the
devil horns at a concert, saluting the band with a message of "I enjoy
your songs to the extent that I will contort my
fingers into a fanciful shape and raise them above my head, in unison
with my fellow crowd members".
