Ever since I made the Congregation by Leprous my album of
the year for 2015 I have been wanting to see them live. I finally got to fulfill
that desire on October 17 when Leprous descended upon the dive-bar venue, Joe’s
Grotto. It’s a small, almost seedy bar perfect for metal. The fact that it has
a great sound system helps too. My fiancé accompanied me to this show as well
as one of my friends whom we met at the venue.
Dissona the first band on the bill set up quickly from
when we arrived. The first thing that I noticed was that there were only a trio
of dudes on the stage. There was no bass player! There was definitely bass being
patched through the PA but it was just Matt Motto shredding on guitars, Drew
Goddard hitting the skins, and Dave Dubenic doing an interpretive dance sway
while singing. Bassist Craig Hamburger was nowhere to be found but he was there
in “spirit”. I later found out that he simply couldn’t make it due to prior
engagements. For such a small band setting aside time to go on tour must be
tough.
Despite not being at full power Dissona made the most out of
what they were given. This was their first show in Arizona and they were warmly
accepted by the couple dozen metalheads in attendance at the time. After their
set my fiancé and I got to meet Dubenic. He’s a really nice, chill guy who gave
me a couple of business cards.
Binary Code were up next and all that I can really comment
on them is that all of the band members were present. To be honest, the band is
not terrible there was just nothing memorable about them. I have heard their
current album Moonsblood but it was nothing that stood out to me. They’re all
competent musicians and the performance was fine but again their stage presence
was just as plain as white bread.
The self-proclaimed “cinematic rock” band Earthside were the
next act. This is a band that is trying to punch well above their weight class
with a 70” monitor showing accompanying videos and just having an overall
grander show than what Joe’s Grotto can provide. It’s a very noble and worthy
attempt and I hope that they are able to get to a larger venue to really
fulfill their vision. Of course this type of performance is not without issue.
Earthside is primarily an instrumental band but on their
current album A Dream in Static, they’ve enlisted the help of some guest
singers. Lajon Witherspoon from Sevendust, Daniel Tompkins from Tesseract, and
Bjorn Strid from Soilwork all contributed to different songs. Their
performances were also playing on the giant monitor. It was kind of neat to see
but I think that Earthside could have benefitted from having a touring singer
fill in those roles.
Despite my small quibble about that, Earthside put on a
great show especially from keyboardist/keytarist Frank Sacramone. He didn’t
always play on the keyboards – when he didn’t he was playing air-guitar or
air-drumming. Sometimes he would even pick up another guitar to accompany James
van Dyck. Sacramone even jumped into the small crowd with his keytar at one
point during a song. I hope that they keep up that energy for any future tours.
I had a little bit of trepidtion about seeing Leprous live as I wasn’t
sure if they would be able to replicate their sounds on their albums. When the
first notes of “the Flood” hit I knew that any doubts that I had vanished.
Everyone was on point and the dazzling light show really added to the
atmosphere bathing the venue in blues and greens. Einar Solberg hit all of the
notes although there were a couple of times where it sounded like he was in a
wrong key. When Solberg wasn’t playing the keys he was flailing like a mad man
and put his entire soul and energy into his performance. He jumped onto plastic
risers, triumphantly throwing his fist into the air and headbanging to the
beat.
I didn’t have to wait that long to see Leprous and they are
definitely a band to see live. I can’t wait for their next trip to the United
States whenever their next album drops. A side anecdote: my fiancé is expecting
with our unborn child and our child really loved Leprous according to my fiancé.
Turns out our child will have great taste in music at least until the
rebellious teenage years kick in.
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