Apologies for the particularly fuzzy quality of the pictures in this review. I will make no bones about my amateur at best skills as a photographer, that much should be evident by now, but with all the lights and a smoke machine going off essentially right in front of my face it got particularly difficult to capture any good images.
Sometimes, all it takes is name recognition. Eye Empire is a name that has been floating around for a while, but without having gone out of the way to listen to them, and without any rock radio in my life I don't casually come across bands that often, all there was to the decision to see them was name recognition. Upon discovering at the show that the bass player is Corey Lowery, brother of Sevendust's Clint Lowery, the recognition made even more sense. As important as promotional materials can be to some, to others, all it takes is a simple name or two.
Apologies to False Advertisement (and Matt Damon), we ran out of time and were unable to make their set, but the first band of our evening was another familiar name. When I last caught Danger Casanova, I lamented the lack of an album to immediately fill my ears with more of their infectious throwback cock rock. Thankfully, in the interim they've released one, so another fantastic performance did not leave me wanting for too long. I remain impressed at the sheer level of charisma and attitude this band can project without sidelining or losing track of their instrumental chops. If anything, they were even tighter this time around. Having a drunk woman in the front row grabbing crotches might derail some bands, but for Danger Casanova, I'm sure it's just another bit of stage dressing.
While the business of national versus local acts is certainly well understood, if anything placing Danger Casanova that early on the bill sabotaged the next couple of acts. I had no problem at all with True Becoming's performance. The band made its blue collar, down home rock and roll style very evident immediately and the singer was rather impressive. But after the high energy of Casanova, there was a certain level of downturn to only giving a fine performance. There didn't seem to be any real attempts at flair, any effort to stand out. If they'd been placed lower on the bill, perhaps this wouldn't have stood out as much, but coming after a high energy opener, it creates a problem.
I can't say that Mindset Evolution were much more impressive in terms of energy, but that was the least of their problems. For some reason, after two acts that sounded just fine, the mix took a turn for the worse almost as soon as Mindset took the stage. For the first couple of songs there was all sorts of microphone feedback coming off the lead vocal mic. Once the feedback was fixed, every mic, four of the five members had vocal parts, became simply too quiet which made for a confusing, muddled sound. The instrumental mix was never really adjusted, making for soft guitars and an overly loud bass that tended to degenerate to fuzz if played fast enough. The drums were about the only highpoint of the mix, which was fine by me because the drummer was easily the most standout performer on the stage. The lead guitarist attempted solos that probably would've come off as flashy and impressive if we could hear them, so points for the effort there. The vocalist filled a lot of the spaces between songs with what I assume were supposed to be inspirational speeches, but when we could barely hear him these long stretches really killed whatever momentum they were attempting to build up. Poor sound quality isn't a band's fault, but I find it hard to believe that they weren't picking up on any of the difficulties on the monitors and made no attempt to adjust. Whoever was at fault, it definitely wasn't what you wanted second from the top of the bill.
Thankfully, Eye Empire is apparently a band that is more than capable of coming back from the death momentum and flow and restarting a room. Over the course of a nineteen song set, Eye Empire played enough different styles and exhibited enough skill to qualify for a few different subgenres. One of their songs, closer to the end, more than qualified as full out metal. It's rare that I find the bass to be the highlight of a performance because I simply don't have much of an ear for it, but owing to a much better mix and a great performance Corey Lowery's bass lines were top notch. The guitars were a little on the soft side still but there were enough solos and chances to show off the pedalboard that their presence was made known regardless. Vocals were again soft, but the singer had stage presence to spare so it was if nothing else entertaining to see him stalk around the stage and flip what Mohawk he had around like a maniac. Aside from one instance when the band had to stop because the drummer began counting in the wrong song, it was really quite an impressive performance overall. Their second album comes out October 29th, and I will definitely be picking it up.
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