Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, Baroness and Valient Thorr

Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, Baroness and Valient Thorr
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Knitting Factory Concert House – Spokane, WA

Disclaimer: I love all types of music and going to concerts is my favorite past time. But, for some reason I don’t make it to Metal shows that often. I’m not really sure why. But this Metal show was fantastic and I thought every band so skilled that there is no way I can give this review(I’m more a photographer than a writer) the justice it deserves. But, here is my attempt…

Nothing like a Metal show to compliment the nice May weather in Spokane. The 2010 Volcom Tour was the best Metal show I have ever seen. It put Ozzfest, Slayer and well any other metal concert I’ve seen to shame. All the bands killed it! Some were so technical I would stand inside of the front row taking photos in amazement at the timing of the drummers, the energy, how fast the bass players were playing and the overall skill of each and every band.

Mastodon is amazing live. This was the first time I’ve seen them and man I left with my jaw on the floor. I did not realize that guitarist Bill Kelliher was really the glue that holds the band together. Drummer Brann Dailor has perfect timing. Brent Hinds is just a crazy guitar player and vocalist. Everyone on the floor at the Knitting Factory was singing every word to every song. “Crack the Sky” is the brilliant album released by Mastodon last year that I really need to listen to more and will after seeing them live.

Between the Buried and Me was technical metal that reminded me of Frank Zappa a little bit. There was a lot going on with a full band and keyboard player / lead singer that tore the Knitting Factory stage to pieces.

Fellow Georgians (as Mastodon is also from Georgia) Baroness are fantastic live. They slowed down the energy a little bit from Valient Thorr but kept myself and the rest of the crowd jacked their entire set. Very skilled band.

I brought Trucker Dave to the show with me because he is a huge Valient Thorr fan and has been for over 5 years now. Here is his review of their blistering set to open the show.

Damn! Valient Thorr killed it at The Knitting Factory. They were the openers for Baroness, Between the Buried and Me and of course, Mastodon. I first saw V.T. in 2005 at The Warp Tour playing on The Volcom stage to about 20 kids. You would have thought they were playing to 20,000 by the way they were absolutely ripping their set to shreds. The show tonight was no different. We got to the show early as not to miss them, and as always Valient Thorr delivered the goods. The stand out tune for me was “The Tomorrow Police” (there is a video on the Valient Thorr website.) The best part of all was that Valient himself hung out at the merch booth and said hello to fans of the band. If you get a chance to see Valient Thorr do it. Then, you too can call yourself a “THORRIOR”