Concert Review: Lamb of God/Decapitated/Anciients at the Hub 06/06/13

I've been going to live shows and hitting up every meet and greet or autograph signing I can for three years now, and at this point I've mostly gotten past being starstruck. I can't say it doesn't happen, when I met Korn last year I was mostly unable to speak and got an obnoxious case of the nervous giggles once they were no longer around, but I've largely gotten myself to a point where I'm not the obnoxious fanboy and I'm able to be normal and even have normal discussions with these people in addition to getting my booklets signed.

I had a full out panic attack right before I met Lamb of God. I'm talking hands shaking, unable to speak properly, yelling at my companion, whatever symptoms you usually associate with a panic attack. So, you know, I clearly was more than a little nervous.

Part of it was my fault. I chose to lay down when we got to the hotel. Part of it was the fact that I'd never had to go up to the box office, say I was on the guest list, and get taken backstage before. Part of it was holy crap, I was about to meet Lamb of God. Either way, by the time I was in the backstage corridor at the Hub I was a sweaty mess and not in any kind of presentable shape to be meeting people I admire.

Luckily, they were all nice guys. 

The fact that Randy wasn't there can't be ignored. Lindsey, not as into Lamb of God as I am, was mostly coming for him and was visibly disappointed by it. I can't deny that I was disappointed too, but the way I look at it is this: I met four more famous musicians that day than some if not most people meet in their whole lives. I have no right to complain. Whether it was security, or not feeling up to being social with fans due to recent events, Randy wouldn't skip out without a good reason. I had a great time talking with Mark Morton about racing, John Campbell about his sense of humor, and barely managed to stop from squealing when I met the Adler brothers.

Oh, and I saw a pretty awesome concert too. I should probably talk about that.

The first band on the bill were a late addition, a fact that became very obvious within the first song. California's Terror, originally slated to be opening on this leg, were forced to drop off the tour within less than a week of it being due to begin due to unspecified health issues. I've never listened to Terror, but I've heard their music described as somewhere between hardcore and moshcore. You know, the kind of music you expect to see on a Lamb of God bill. The band chosen to replace them was Anciients, a band from British Columbia. Their location was the only fact I knew about them before the show began, so imagine my surprise when they hit the stage and they were of all things a prog metal band. Opening a Lamb show with a prog band is like opening a Cannibal Corpse show with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The real shame of it is that despite some technical difficulties, they were very good! I went straight back to the merch table and bought their CD right after their set. The band shows a lot of similarities to Mastodon in terms of their sound and the way they utilize all four band members as vocalists, a comparison I was happy to see backed up by the "BUY IF YOU LIKE MASTODON" sticker on the jewel case of the CD. I would be more than happy to see them again under better circumstances, but I can't deny that they were on the wrong tour, and by the time they left the stage I felt as though the next band was going to have to really step things up in order to build up momentum and win over the crowd.

Luckily, as one could tell by their name, the members of Decapitated were not lacking in terms of brutal energy. These guys were the kind of band I expected to see opening for Lamb of God. The singer's accent occasionally got in the way, I swear he was saying LAMP of God the entire set, but in reality the vocals were the least interesting part of the music for me. The guitars and in particular the bass kept me and the crowd pumping our fists and joining the circle pit for the duration of the set.

I haven't been to a gig yet where I felt that the breaks in between sets were worth noting, but Lamb of God must've had me in mind, because I could've watched their preshow all day. Starting roughly ten minutes before Lamb took the stage, the newly uncovered video screens began showing vintage advertisements, mostly from movie theaters. As a film buff with an interest in the medium's history, I was thrilled to get to see so many vintage spots. The one bump was the fact that they were showing animations in between the ads counting down the ten minutes until showtime, and then once they hit zero it was another two or three minutes before the set intro started.

Within the first ten notes of Desolation, nobody cared about the delay anymore.

My father and I have constant debates about whether it is more important for a band to sound good on record or sound good live. With Lamb of God, the difference was minimal at best. If Randy's microphone had been a little bit louder, that difference may have been eliminated. Theirs was an incredible set, one that brought a new appreciation to songs I've heard time and time again (basically all of the songs off of Ashes of the Wake) and gave me a chance to finally jump into a mosh pit during Black Label, even if said mosh pit did not form a wall of death during the intro. The set was not a nonstop ride, there were breaks that proved excellent examples of the goofy side of Lamb of God that I've always appreciated. Anybody who has seen Killadelphia or Walk with Me in Hell knows that this band is far more capable of making people laugh than the average joe would assume. An extended break during the encore saw the world's first Lamb of God bass solo, which lasted all of one note, the Adler brothers failing to successfully play a death metal tribute to Decapitated, and Randy throwing the single best local reference I've ever heard an entertainer say about the Dakotas out there. I can't for a hundred percent certain say theirs was the best set I've seen, there's too much of me that's arguing Kiss over them, but it was for certain up there, and served as a fitting celebration of Randy's freedom.

All Part of the Plan

A great deal of what being a Christian means is hard for me to accept. Perhaps moreso than anything, it's hard for me to accept the certain lack of control that comes with it. When I separated from my parents, I went from socially awkward to almost completely closed off, and I became both increasingly self-reliant and closed off. So it has become difficult for me to accept that I'm not the one in total control, that there's a plan for me that may not be necessarily one hundred percent generated by me and in my own interest.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was made very aware of who is in charge and why.

It was the opposite of the travel experience I described in my previous entry. I got into Edmonton and was held back from entering US customs by a woman who had an oddly forceful stance about my entering the area too early and kept repeating the same standard line about checking out all the shops on the Canadian side. I'd already seen the bookstores and just wanted to set my bag down for a few hours, but instead I ended up parking at a nearby lounge watching the clock while my glass of water seemingly sweat more liquid than it contained. By the time I got through customs my plane had been delayed by an hour. This ordinarily would be no problem, except my layover at the next airport was almost exactly an hour. At this point, my plane was coming into Denver four minutes after my plane out of Denver began boarding. That's pretty stressful by anybody's standards, for someone with my anxiety issues it's a nightmare. I contacted one of my best friends, who is thankfully also my travel agent, and was basically informed I was S.O.L. I could only hope that I made that plane and if not, I was going to be waiting until the next morning to get home. This seemed the perfect storm of travel difficulties.

Then, improbably, I accepted my situation.

The fact of the matter was, there was nothing I could have done about it anyways. I couldn't have altered the winds in Denver to allow my aircraft to make the stop on time. I couldn't disperse the rain clouds to allow for a smoother ride, perhaps a ride that would allow the crew to make up time en route. I couldn't alter the flow of time. I was totally unable to do a thing, and you know what? That was the way it was. If I ended up stuck in Denver I luckily would have both my aunt and uncle on my mom's side and on my dad's side nearby. If it was going to happen, Denver would be the city for it to happen in.

God had a plan.

The plane arrived earlier than expected, and although boarding took a bit we were off the ground ahead of our delayed schedule. I read a book, slept a bit, and commiserated with the cute girl across the aisle about what we were going to have to do when we got to Denver. I anticipated a run not alike the airport run taken by many a romantic movie protagonist, except there was no beautiful girl at the end of this, just a gate agent.

We touched down in Denver, and upon disembarking I discovered that my two planes were almost right next to each other. The gates were mere feet away. The run against the clock that I'd imagined would be unnecessary. I didn't even have to power walk. I landed in my seat on the plane home and flipped through my MP3 player looking for a comic whose jokes would help with the release of the tension I'd built up. I selected Kyle Kinane's Whisky Icarus album and picked up where I thought I'd left off earlier the previous day with the track God of Thunder (Whisky Icarus's track listing matches the track listing for my favorite Kiss album Destroyer, and God of Thunder is my favorite Kiss song).

The bit, I kid you not, was about a bad airline experience. Talk about a sign from God. I sank back into my seat and made the most of what little time was left in the day, comfortable knowing that I was fine, I had been fine all along, and all was well.

Thanks be to God.