There’s nothing like a rock show on a Wednesday night at a new, trendy dance club, right? With one of the main venues for rock shows in Minneapolis still undergoing some reconstruction work, many of the concerts coming through town have been routed to other venues in the area. This show, which was originally scheduled to run at The Quest Club was sent to The Myth, which is in a northern suburb of the Twin Cities. It’s a dance club by trade, but will host shows as well. With that in mind, the crowd was treated to a show with production values light years ahead of what you’d find in most rock venues in the area.The show started late, no doubt because the tour didn’t have to accommodate the From First to Last set, which is good because I’d much rather listen to the tunes that were played while the road crew set things up than suffer through a half hour or more of FFTL attempting to perform. After the prolonged wait, Chiodos hit the stage, greeted by cheering from most of the crowd. Much like the last time I saw them, Chiodos showed they have a very strong Minnesotan following.
One of the main downfalls of the venue being a dance club in nature is that the sound system is geared towards thumping out techno and trance music, not metal. As such, while the levels were getting adjusted throughout Chiodos’ set, the majority of the middle tones were somewhat mute in comparison to the deep, muddled bass and the highs of the keyboards. A few songs in, the sound levels adjusted nicely, just in time for the band to break into “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek” and follow it up with “The Words ‘Best Friend’ Become Redefined”. The latter of those two songs is always a highlight of any Chiodos’ performance, with its razor sharp opening and the progressive song structure throughout the remainder of the song. Closing the set, the band played the crowd favorite “There’s No Penguins in Alaska”. They put on a solid performance, as they always do when they come through town, and the crowd ate it up.
Playing the middle slot for the night was Every Time I Die. Quite unexpectedly, they had what was easily the best sounding and tightest set of the night. The nature of their style of metalcore doesn’t usually lend itself to tight playing, but every song was spot on and sounded phenomenal. Playing a solid mix of tunes from both Hot Damn! and Gutter Phenomenon their set was a good combination of aggression and fun. Their somewhat southern tinted form of spastic metalcore got the kids to both circle pit like a bunch of rabid monkeys, as well as hardcore dance to the groovier moments.
During their set, ETID tried to resurrect the outdated and quasi-cool (at best during its prime) Arsenio Hall dog pound hoot. Seeing the pit stand staring at the stage doing the dog pound hoot was a laugh and a half. Isn’t it amazing how a crowd is so utterly captive to the performers on stage and will do just about anything they are told to? Once the stage banter was complete, the band finished out their set on a strong note, riling up the kids for the headlining, scene kings, Atreyu.
Now I’ve seen Atreyu three times previous to this performance, each time being totally underwhelmed. In their defense, I reasoned to myself, the places I saw them didn’t have ultra high class sound systems like The Myth so maybe this time would be different. It wasn’t. For some reason, Atreyu routinely fails to put on a good sounding show. The guitars are never quite high enough in the mix and everything feels kind of loose. This was the case yet again, and it was only exemplified by the ultra-tight performance put on by ETID moments before.
Atreyu went through their usual set list except with a little bit more focus on material from A Deathgrip on Yesterday. One of the songs they played from Deathgrip was the atrocious “The Theft”. On disc that song is horrible embodied. Performed live it killed any energy the room might have had. I don’t know why they wrote that song in the first place and am doubly confounded that they even contemplated playing it live, let alone actually doing it. Outside of this big sidestep, everything else was typical Atreyu fair, complete with closing songs “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Lip Gloss in Black” which every last scene kiddie ate up.
By the end of the night, the show felt a little short with only three bands being on the tour, and I don’t know if all the kids felt they got their full $25 to $30 worth. I’d recommend this tour for Chiodos and Every Time I Die, but not necessarily for Atreyu. There are some better tours coming around right now that it might be a better bet to save your hard earned cash and go to some other shows. If money isn’t a factor, though, then give this gig a whirl. It’s decent enough.
Click here for photos from the show.
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