Last Saturday, Lamb of God came back to Philly on a blinding tour for another videotaped performance, this time at the Electric Factory. The tour also included the likes of the Swedish power house group In Flames, Texas’s gut-busting Hellyeah, and England’s new up and coming Thrash titans, Sylosis (Hatebreed were also on a leg of this tour and there were rumors that Cannibal Corpse might appear on a few dates in place of Hellyeah).
Kicking off the evening’s rampage was Sylosis. I had heard of Sylosis before and I was familiar with some of their music, but I hadn’t listened to them in a long time and seeing them live made me want to go home and listen to all three albums nonstop. I thought they were incredibly good considering that a) this was their second time in America and b) they don’t move around a lot so they have to rely on their complex riffs and machine gun precision to keep people interested.
Next up as Hellyeah. I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan really at all. They have a couple of tracks that are pretty good, but I just never got into them and Chad Grey bugs me as a singer. I just don’t think he’s that great. That being said, I was thoroughly impressed by their live show. The band really do sound like a stampede on stage (in a good way) and Grey can really control a crowd…or maybe that was just because the majority of people in attendance were drunk by this point in time. No, in all seriousness, this band seem to have a really loyal following and I thought they were really good. Plus, it’s Vinnie Paul on the drums, so I found that to be really cool and exciting, especially because he really is the driving force of that band both musically and because of his history.
Next we have In Flames, a band that I feel never really got the credit they deserve when it came to them being on of the big three pioneers of the swedish melodic death metal style that became a signature of metalcore, death metal, melodic death metal, etc. They had a live show that would rival any other headliner (except for the fact that Lamb of fucking God was the headliner…so that doesn’t really count haha) and they stormed through a collection of their all time greatest hits. The light show was phenomenal, and everyone seemed like they were having a good time. I was so glad to finally see them for the first time on a night as momentous as that night.
Moving forward to the main attraction, now it’s time for Lamb of God. After everything that’s happened to the band and Randy in particular, I think everyone was both curious and excited to see how things would turn out and how the band would play. Knowing that Lamb of God simply just do not fail live I didn’t have any doubts, but man, I have not seen them play that well before. It was an all killer no filler set and the new songs sound amazing. They opened with “Desolation” and “Ghost Walking” off the new record and they also dropped “Undertow” in the middle of the set. They played a blistering hour and a half long set with a four song encore of “In Your Words”, “Laid to Rest”, “Redneck” and “Black Label.” If you’ve ever seen Lamb of God before, then you know how crazy their shows can get and it was all that and more. The highlight of their set was during a small break in between songs; the whole crowd starting shouting “RAAAANNN-DY! RAAAANNN-DY!” the spotlight was on him and he was just grinning like a little school girl and you could tell he was just so thankful and truly happy. He then went into the opening lines to “Omerta” a vengeful song that seemed appropriate considering the whole Czech controversy surrounding the band. All in all, it was just such a great show. If you missed it, you really missed out.
No word yet as to whether the show will be produced into another live CD/DVD. As far as I know they just streamed the show live online, but what do I know?
Great show. Everyone killed it and fun was had by all.
Luke Helker
Hear Me Out 