Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Four nationally acclaimed metal bands descended on a small Bucksport venue Friday night. The Kave, one of the area’s few entryways to the international metal and hardcore scene, hosted death metallers The Black Dahlia Murder, old school thrashers Toxic Holocaust and Skeletonwitch and noise-grinders Trap Them.
Local favorites Jules Verne opened with their mosh-centric form of metalcore. The tightly packed crowd responded accordingly, compressing what little space there was on the floor to leave room for the barrage of spin kicks, floor punches and circle pits that followed.
The audience experienced a rare degree of interaction with the bands. In between sets, and sometimes during them, bands members would freely mingle with the fans.
This breakdown of typical audience-band barriers continued with Trap Them’s set. The Salem, New Hampshire-based band was particularly provocative. During the sets, band members could be seen clearly with extended middle fingers. In a somewhat disturbing moment, vocalist Ryan McKenney wrapped his microphone cable around a gentleman in the front row’s neck. Safety concerns aside, the group performed a fast and powerful set, mixing elements of late-period Black Flag with “Young God”-era Swans to achieve a chilling effect.
Next was Toxic Holocaust, which quickly and accurately tore through a set list drawn primarily from last year’s album, “An Overdose of Death,” with a track or two from their “Evil Never Dies” EP thrown in for good measure. The group was well received, and the end of their set consisted of copious stage-diving from members of the crowd.
Audience numbers were still resilient later into the night as Skeletonwitch dished out their brand of thrash/black metal. Frontman Chance Garnett was particularly popular with the crowd due to the contrast of his Viking-like appearance and his amusingly tongue-in-cheek song introductions. Toward the middle of their set, he turned to the audience stating, “This song is about killing everyone” before continuing after a brief pause with, “and I mean everyone, even my f—ing girlfriend,” to general audience laughter. The rest of the band kept mostly to themselves in between songs, preferring to lay the melodic thrash background, over which Garnett growled and shrieked.
Headlining the show were Michigan heavy hitters The Black Dahlia Murder. Many of the young members of the crowd were especially excited to see this group. Several
audience members were wearing their intricately designed T-shirts and hoodies and rushed the front of the stage as the band began their set. Unfortunately, they used an obviously triggered drumkit to enhance their sound, something immediately apparently in a small venue. They accurately and energetically ran through a collection of songs ranging from their newest album to their 2002 demo, “A Cold Blooded Epitaph.”
Despite the regrettable presence of rather violent moshing that often degrades a show’s atmosphere to jock-style bullying, the concert was a treat for those looking to get their fix of a style of music rarely performed in this area. The sound quality was excellent, but not over-polished, and the majority of bands seemed genuinely excited to see such an enthusiastic crowd. The humility on display by a majority of bands was a welcome reprieve from the typical tough-guy theatrics of similar acts.
