Holy. Fucking. Shit. That happened. Gojira surely put on one of the best performances I have ever seen. The intensity and perfection of this show ranks up there - the first time I saw Pantera; At The Gates back in the day; early Mastodon; Carcass. Flying fucking whales.Rich, Chrissy, and I showed up early at the venue. If nothing else, The Blender Theater is a great place to hang out. We headed straight for the downstairs lounge, where the guys from Gojira were doing an interview of some sort. We love the Duplantier brothers. I'm talking serious bromance. The dudes at Metal Sucks know what I mean.
The Blender Theater has video of the upstairs show piped down into the lounge, and the sound down there is excellent. We couldn't think of any reason to go upstairs to sacrifice our ears for Carbomb or The Chariot. Not my style.
Frank joined us just in time for Gojira to come out. The floor was pretty packed. I have no idea what happened with that Napalm Death show, but there was an excellent turnout for Gojira.
"Oroborous" started things off slow. The crowd was winding up tighter with every moment of synchronized finger tapping. Shit exploded with "The Heaviest Matter of the Universe." The crowd was excellent. Before we knew it, my brother Rich had lost his shirt in a raging circle pit.
The band tossed around ridiculous feats of musicianship with ease. Joe Duplantier's singing was awesome. The man seems to stand 13 feet tall on stage. The band really do have superhuman stage presence. And the drumming. THE DRUMMING.
Mario Duplantier raged with uncontrollable perfection. His drum solo is easily the best I have ever seen. In a few terse moments he basically composed an original percussive song. Unreal.
Gojira makes you move. I saw some of my favorite NYC metal show regulars rocking out. I always love the dude who grooves like it's a f'ing dance off. Total metal. I feel like a show is a failure if I'm not headbanging and doing all of the ridiculous dances that burst out when I'm alone at home. This show elicited nothing less than a rapturous religious experience. I definitely knocked over a few people with my awesome leprechaun jigs.
It was an excellent night.
Setlist:
Oroborous
The Heaviest Matter of the Universe
Backbone
Love
From the Sky
A Sight to Behold
Art of Dying
Drum solo
Clone
Flying Whales
Toxic Garbage Island
The Way of All Flesh
--------------------
Vacuity
The Chicago show was excellent. And, yeah, the drum solo kicked much ass.
ReplyDelete