Tag: Beaumont Club

Review: Metric

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review, review

(Above: Metric get raw for “Monster Hospital” on August 12, 2012, at the Beaumont Club in Kansas City, Mo.)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

It took a few songs for Metric’s set to get off the ground Wednesday night at the Beaumont Club, but once the band finally took off they soard.

An abundance of new material and time getting the mix right contributed to the muted start, but the biggest issue was personnel. On their next tour, the four-piece Canadian indie pop band should consider bringing someone else to help with keyboards. Frontwoman Emily Haines is far too charismatic and has too great a stage presence to be wedged behind her synthesizers.

Although recent single “Youth Without Youth” got a warm response, the first big moment came during “Empty.” It is telling that this is also the first time Haines was feed from her station for a significant amount of time. Effortlessly prowling the front of the stage, Haines flipped her blonde locks from side to side with the beat and cooed a charged call and response from the crowd.

Once she had the crowd, Haines never let go. The icy synthesizers on “Clone” seemed to subconsciously draw the two-thirds full room closer to the stage. Radio hit “Help, I’m Alive” drew a predictably strong response and got most of the audience dancing and singing along.

For most of their 90-minute set, Metric shuffled a glorious deck of influences. At certain times strains of Brian Eno, New Order, Pet Shop Boys and U2 were plainly audible. During the encore the band showed another facet, dropping the synthesizers and playing straight-up rock and roll. “Monster Hospital” almost sounded like a punk song and the slyly political “Gold Guns Girls” featured Haines on electric guitar.

The setlist drew heavily from this year’s “Syntheitica” album. After reeling off five of its tracks in a row to open the show, Metric eventually performed all but three of the album’s cuts. Of the remaining songs Wednesday night, all but two came from 2009’s much-loved “Fantasies.”

Final song “Gimme Sympathy” turned the room from a discotheque to a campfire. With the rhythm section departed, Haines and guitarist James Shaw turned the fan favorite into a quiet acoustic number. On the chorus Haines posed the challenge music nerds have been debating for a generation: “Who’d you rather be/the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” The answer, of course, is that there is no wrong answer. By revving up the crowd with jackhammer dance beats and getting everyone to sing along a cappella, Haines proved that she can have it both ways as well.

Setlist: Artificial Nocturne, Youth Without Youth, Speed the Collapse, Dreams So Real, Lost Kitten, Empty, Help, I’m Alive; Synthetica, Clone, Breathing Underwater, Sick Muse, Dead Disco, Stadium Love. Encore: Monster Hospital, Gold Guns Girls, Gimme Sympathy.

Keep reading:

Review: Metric (2009)

Review: Metric at Lilith Fair

Review – Arctic Monkeys

Advertisement

Review: Escape the Fate with Attack Attack

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review, review

(Above: Escape the Fate find “Something.”)

By Joel Francis
The Kansas City Star

Escape the Fate and Attack Attack capped a long night of metal at the Beaumont Club on Thursday. Rarely has a genre so closely associated with darkness and despair sounded as communal and uplifting.

Neither five-piece band had any trouble whipping the crowd into a frenzy. The Beaumont was just over half-full at its peak, and the crowd made full use of the extra room, creating pockets of mosh pits. Attack Attack singer Caleb Shomo repeatedly encouraged the formation of a large slam-dance circle in the middle of the floor, and fans were all too willing to comply.

Both bands traded in tuned-down guitar riffs, growled and screamed vocals and insistent machine-gun bass-drum cadences. While the verses to many songs were musically hostile, the lyrics spoke of redemption, perseverance and self-belief.

The fun-loving crew of Attack Attack.

Driving the point home on nearly every number was a big, poppy chorus that dropped the screaming and allowed the coed crowd to participate in spreading the message.

What each act lacked in sonic diversity, it made up for in sustained energy. Shomo and Escape the Fate singer Craig Mabbitt walked the line between ringleader and supportive sibling, commanding dancing and jumping, encouraging sing-alongs and always praising participation.

Shomo and Mabbitt also took time from their brief 55-minute sets to preach the importance of holding on to one’s dream no matter what others may say and the conviction that any dream is possible provided one believes in it enough and works hard to achieve it.

Several numbers in the Columbus, Ohio-based Attack Attack performance had a strong dance element, with silky keyboard loops spinning underneath the forceful arrangements. The discotheque elements provided a nice counterbalance to the metal façade. When Escape the Fate let up on the throttle ever so slightly, its music revealed a strong emo influence.

Hailing from Las Vegas, Escape the Fate hasn’t released a new album since 2010, so anticipation was high to hear new numbers. Attack Attack’s third album, “This Means War,” has been out only since January, but there was no dip in crowd enthusiasm between the older and new material.

At one point, Mabbitt dedicated a song to all the moms and girlfriends out there. The ensuing number was a pleasant surprise. Instead of a clichéd, misogynistic, sex-drenched come-on, “Ashley” was a heartfelt tribute to Mabbitt’s girlfriend. One song earlier, Mabbitt dedicated the song “You Are So Beautiful” to his little brother, who was helping at the merch table.

Romance, affirmation and appreciation aren’t very metal, but then again neither is having a family re-create “Crazy Train” for a car commercial or reappropriating “Welcome to the Jungle” to announce a relief pitcher.

Attack Attack and Escape the Fate may not pass muster with purists, but they’ve figured out a great formula. Sweeten the chorus enough to bring the girls along for the ride, make enough noise to keep Dad shaking his head and scream long enough for Mom to frown.

Keep reading:

Review: Ozzy + Slash

Review: Get Up Kids

Persistance of Anthrax

 

Review: Megadeth

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review, Kansas City Star

(Above: Megadeth perform “Hangar 18” in England earlier this year. The audio quality is pretty much what it sounded like inside the Beaumont Club as well.)

By Joel Francis
The Kansas City Star

Blazing fast guitar licks, double-kick bass-drum riffs and an armada of metal anthems: Dave Mustaine brought everything that made Megadeth famous to the Beaumont Club on Saturday night.

The majority of the quartet’s 90-minute set drew from its reign at the top of the thrash heap in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when it played before massive crowds alongside Slayer and Anthrax and was compared to Mustaine’s former bandmates, Metallica.

Although Mustaine had to rehearse the crowd’s part for “Head Crusher,” one of four songs performed off the band’s current album, “Endgame,” most of the time he was able to step back and let the mob rule the mic. The schizophrenic “Sweating Bullets” and outro to “Peace Sells” were especially lusty sing-alongs. The audience vocals were frequently clearer than Mustaine’s, which were buried in an abysmal mix that made every number sound and feel like brick to the head.

Snarling vocals aside, Megadeth’s other hallmark is lightning-fast, labyrinthine fretwork gymnastics. Although he’s yet to celebrate his second anniversary in the band, guitarist Chris Broderick was more than up to the task, ripping up the extended instrumental half of “Hangar 18,” tearing through the epic “In My Darkest Hour” and trading solos with Mustaine on “She-Wolf” and the warp-speed new song “1,320’.” Ever the gracious host, Mustaine frequently retreated to bang his rusty locks alongside the bank of Marshall amplifiers lined across the back of the stage while Broderick took center stage.

The rhythm section of Shawn Drover and James LoMenzo – Megadeth veterans with six and four years of service, respectively – guided the groove into “Trust” and held down the framework for the guitar pyrotechnics.
While many metal songs focus on war, Mustaine has never been afraid to get political. Megadeth’s previous album was called “United Abominations” and features a song called “Washington is Next!” The closing triptych revealed an interesting point of view.

“Symphony of Destruction” deals with political puppets propped up by a government bent on war. “Peace Sells” discusses disillusionment and hypocrisy of politicians who aim for peace but somehow end up perpetuating war. (The song’s refrain is “Peace sells/but who’s buying?”) “Holy Wars” started out as a referendum on Northern Ireland, but features several Middle Eastern guitar breaks and echoes jihad theory.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t war Mustaine wanted to talk about. Instead, he interrupted “Peace Sells” for an anti-Obama screed, blasting the president without using his name for selling the country to the Chinese and giving away civil rights. Mustaine’s solution was to “write my own (expletive) name in there” on the ballot come election day.

(It is curious that in the week following Obama’s announcement of an Afghani surge after running a campaign on ending the war, Mustaine would ignore these parallels for clichéd attacks.)

After peaking on the charts in the late ‘90s, Mustaine broke up the band in 2002. Two years later, he resurrected the name as the only continuing member, but has yet to regain drawing power as a live act. While the Beaumont was plenty crowded, tickets were still being sold at the door after the band had taken the stage.

If the stumble from stadiums to clubs frustrated Mustaine, it didn’t show. He took time before “44 Minutes” to express heartfelt thanks to everyone for letting them play, and long after the rest of the band had departed, Mustaine lingered onstage after “Holy Wars” to shake hands and congratulate fans.

Setlist: Dialectic Chaos, This Day We Fight, Wake Up Dead, Skin of My Teeth, Head Crusher, A Tout Le Monde, She-Wolf, Tornado of Souls, 1,320’, In My Darkest Hour, Sweating Bullets, Hangar 18, 44 Minutes, Trust, Symphony of Destruction, Peace Sells. Encore: Holy Wars.