Hard Features

In Flames, Throwdown, Nevermore, Evergrey

5/12/06 Piere’s Fort Wayne, Indiana

by John Haseltine

Well another show and yes, more headaches. I have had terrible luck with publicists and tour managers lately. When you’re set up to do a show review with a photo pass, give the guy (me) the photo pass. Funny thing is I talked with the tour manager for Evergrey/Nevermore and the tour manager for In Flames just a couple hours before the show and they both were like, “ cool, no problem at all.” Well when I go to check in I got the story, “ oh, we can’t just give out photo passes.” Whatever. If you’re too damn lazy to walk up a flight of stairs for a sticker, just say it. Before hand. Luckily in this situation I only live about 2 miles from the venue. But when I came back from dropping my camera and shit off at home, Evergrey were already playing. They started 15 minutes early and I missed out on their first song. Well I caught the last few seconds of it.

Bummer that it was missing the first song of the band I was mainly there to see. Especially when they are for some reason first on the bill and are only set to play six songs. With the release of their latest disk, ‘Monday Morning Apocalypse’, Evergrey are making their trek through the states on a short tour with In Flames before heading back to Europe for the summer festival season. I talked with Tom and Rikard after their set and they say there is no reason to fret as they will be heading back to the states later this fall. As short as their set was, it was still superb. Evergrey are a great live band. The few songs that they get to play on this tour were the perfect selection. Evergrey are gaining ground here in the states and I hope all of you who are fans get your chance to witness these guys up on stage. You won’t regret it. Their set list was, “Blinded, More Than Ever, Still In The Water, Monday Morning Apocalypse, Obedience and A Touch Of Blessing.”

Next on the bill is Nevermore. Why are they second on the bill? I guess regional sales? National sales? Although Throwndown played a ferocious set, Nevermore should have been in their spot. And Evergrey in Nevermore’s. But then again, what the hell do I know? Not much. I do know now that I have a new found appreciation for Nevermore after seeing them live. I have their past couple of albums, and listen to them every now and then. Never really praising them, just knowing that they’re a pretty good American metal band. Well they too are a kick ass live act. They are of just a few bands that this country needs to forge on in the metal community. They were right on this night. They too had too short of a set. Some selections they played were, “ Final Product, Poison God Machine, BORN, Dead Heart In A Dead World, Engines Of Hate.” There were a couple others that I myself am not familiar with. But anyways, for what they did play, excellent. I’d love to see a headlining show.

Throwdown are next. And in thinking about it closely, I wonder why they are on the bill at all. I know promoters are trying to mix up tours a bit to try and get more fans to the shows, but a metal-core band just didn’t fit with the bill. At least to me. They did throw down a brutal set and the crowd did enjoy their Pantera/Hatebreed style of music. They even took a moment to pay tribute to Dimebag by playing “A New Level”. Other songs performed included, “Speak The Truth, To Live Is To Sacrifice, Annihilation(N.W.D.), This Is War and Burn”. Again they were good and they did change to pace of the show a bit.

In Flames, are In Flames. They have mastered the art of their craft and belt it out on stage with the utmost precision. I was fairly unimpressed with their sound at last years Ozzfest. But they were the first band on the main stage. Last nights show was a different story. A toast to the sound guys. Their set sounded great. I did notice while watching, they sort of rolled through the set like it was just another night at work. Do they kick it up a notch for the larger markets? Yeah, so they played songs from pretty much every album. A few included are, “ Pinball Map, System, Behind Space, Crawl Through Knives, Only For The Weak, Take This Life, The Quiet Place and My Sweet Shadow.” There were others as they played for just a bit over an hour. I sort of stopped paying attention here and there.

All in all a great show overall. If you get the chance, head out and see it. It runs through the end of May.