Grave, Blood Red Throne, Pathology and Gigan - Park Theater Sep. 11th, 2011

When the Royal Albert Arms shut down to be updated and to fix a main break, all of the metal shows scheduled there were re-routed mainly to the Park Theater on Osbourne. The Royal Albert's absence from the metal venue circuit has a left a hole in many of our hearts and stomachs, mainly because they had really cheap beer- but also because the acoustics sucked, there was a huge pillar blocking the center of the stage for all those who weren't right in front and because it was a dank dark place that a lot of us considered a second home. Yes, there's a warm, gooey place in our souls, where we fondly think of the Albert. Rumour has it, that after the main pipe break was fixed, the city came in and demanded updates on many parts of the Albert for safety. I can't imagine why, because it would just make the Albert an infamous and possibly haunted venue if something horrific happened. Awesome!

The show on the 11th of September was a death metal feast, with Grave hailing all the way from Sweden for their first gig ever in Winnipeg and Blood Red Throne coming from Norway to batter at our ear drums. I was ready for a steady night of excellent music, and made sure that I smuggled in enough Kieth's to tide me over the entire night. No security at that Park makes this an excellent venue for photography on stage and bringing your own booze.

The first band was Gigan, coming from Chicago, and I was pleasantly surprised at how avant garde their music was. Playing with strange guitar noises, pitching high but not obtrusively, and with a strange set of pedals for both the bassist and guitarist. Their vocalist had excellent stage presence and often gesticulated, or turned his back on the crowd to make a christ-esque pose. Their drummer wore a Lemmy shirt, and hammered on the drums with amazing speed and precision, which is a necessity in pounding brutal death metal. Their bassist Patrick played fiercely and seldom stood still, and used an MXR guitar distortion pedal to mix in with the brutal sound. The master and writer of all this music though, is Eric Hersemanna a lefty-guitarist, which even I can't boast.

Eric Hersemann

After Gigan's set, I checked out their pedals for reference, and enquired with Eric about what the hell a MoogerFooger pedal was. A MoogerFooger of course, is a brand of pedal, but his particular one was a MF-102 Ring Modulator. "It takes two frequencies and twists them together in either a high or low frequency." as Eric put it. The web page states "The moogerfooger ring modulator can create effects ranging from subtle tremolo to harmonically rich distortion, gong-like sounds, sweeps, swoops, and divebombs. It can be subtle, or outlandish"  Which is where he gets his unique and amazing sound from.

Standing guard at the merch was Patrick, the Gigan bassist, and so I began to get to know Gigan. Their range of age goes from Kaish, their drummer at twenty-three years of age to Eric, whom is thirty-something. How this band found eachother, I have no idea, but I am very pleased they did. I bought their CD's, got a poster signed and even helped tear down their merch after the show was done. Eric was especially polite and easy to speak with about a range of things. Some time during the show, however, discord took place and Kaish lost his cell phone somewhere at the Park. Well, at least they were offered a place to stay by another fan named Tod, who I ran into at Opeth again and discussed the possible set-list with.

The next band, Blood Red Throne to me, did not appear to be all too spectacular in appearance, but who should be? One of their guitarists looks extremely similar to Dimebag, right down to the Dean guitar and facial hair. The other guitarist had little hair at all, but shredded like no one's business. I spent much of their set either taking pictures, or speaking with Gigan, so unfortunately, there isn't much to tell for their set.

Finally, Grave... the band I came to see. Swedish death metal being one of my favourite sub-genres of metal, with it's iconic guitar tone that almost every swedish death metal band seems to use. I felt they were humbled by the small Park Theater, but then I was thankful because the Park makes bands so accessable for photo's and interviews as well as just hanging out.

A pit, believe it or not.

Grave ended up playing their entire first album "Into The Grave" which was absolutely moving, as far as death metal goes. Their bassist managed to play with only three bass strings, and I assumed he did this on purpose until he told me it broke before the show. This is why you should always bring an extra set of strings to a gig! Their playfulness on stage was very apparent, and seeing any band have fun on stage is usually a good thing. The pit was acceptable for the Park, and so the bonding excercise and good music made this particular group of people a little bit closer.

After the show, I was invited by Gigan's Eric to come hang out with the bands, so I headed out back with them for some quality hang out time. Of course there was gratuitous drinking, and I was asked if I needed a beer by Grave's bassist, and I gladly accepted. I asked him and their drummer about Swedish education and about cold Winnipeg gets in comparison to their nice coastal climate. Their drummer told us all about how he bought shitty socks from the States, and promptly poured kerosine on them and lit them aflame. Their bassist quickly chimed in with "Socks on fire! Socks on fire! Burning, Burning with desire!" I joined in, and lo, twas a gay scene. However, the own of the Park was displeased, and bitched about the drinking and the fire and his needing to get his young son home. He systematically went around dumping beers from people, and grabbed mine, to which I replied with no mendaciousness "Thank you". Grave's bassist asked if I said "Fuck you" to him, and I said no.

Soon everyone was kicked off the property, so we made ourselves scarce, and I decided it was time I hit the road and let the bands party where ever they find themselves.

Opeth with Katatonia at the Burton Cummings Theater - Oct. 8th, 2011

In my youth, I listened to a good number of doomy metal bands. I say "doomy" because labeling them as simply "doom metal" might stir up some unwanted discussions about the sub-genres or the sub-sub-genres that a band might cover in their career. Katatonia is one of these doomy bands that I thoroughly enjoyed in my earlier years. Sometimes bordering on alternative rock with their softer, yet dreary frame of music, they still put me in a grey place that appealed to me.

So I sat with my significant other, Kent, on the first balcony to the right of the stage and absorbed Katatonia's rugged and dark sound. They played songs from the Great Cold Distance, and even one of my old favourites "I Break". Their sound is inspired, yet had the alacrity to make me feel lethargic. Not really Kent's cup of tea, which is why it surprised me that he wanted to go.

As for stage presence, their vocalist passionately gripped the mic and stand the entire set, but sang his heart out, despite the vocals being light and almost whispy, as apposed to thundering and powerful. Their string players all had their unique way to bang their heads, sometimes pulling their whole bodies into it. This was not a band to mosh to. The member I was most impressed with was their drummer, who played impressively and was never overbearing with the snare that is sometimes a trademark of a drummer.

Encore, Bow. Now for Opeth.

I missed my chance to see Opeth years ago, but now I was excited to see them in this befitting auditorium that would ignite their sound and create a death doom atmosphere. Before the show began, I ran into a fellow fan I had met at Gigan and Grave (for a later post) and we happily discussed what they might play. Our predictions were heavier songs: Demon of the Fall, The Leper Affinity, anything from Still Life, Masters Apprentices, Baying of the Hounds and of course some softer acoustic tracks.... How wrong we were.

Almost half of their tracks were of course from their latest album, Heritage. By the third track, Face of Melinda, I could tell this was a no gutteral gig. No death metal, seldom heavy riffage, but somehow still riveting. Their set lasted almost two solid hours, and I was aching to stand up by their encore, Folklore. I must say, I was a little disappointed, merely because I expected Mikael to throw in some of his fine vocal gymnastics between his raging gutteral and his beautiful soft vocals. Maybe next time?

No pictures this time, and I'm glad I didn't dish out the extra money to get on the small floor the Burton Cummings offers. Mikael is a charming fellow, and I do wish I could have spoken to him, but Opeth is too big an act for just anyone to catch up with them at their tour bus.

Enslaved Oct. 5th, 2011 at The West End Cultural Center

The newly renovated WECC doesn't seem like such a pit anymore, compared to the time when I saw Sonata Arctica in February of 2007. Yes, the new renovations give new life to this venue, and it holds a special place in my heart. The acoustics are good, the stage is just big enough to host a decent enough metal band, but still small enough to do away with need for security. This time, I witnessed Enslaved, hailing all the way from Norway and Alcest from France.

The opening band was nothing terribly special and felt more like Blink 182 mashed up with a blackened Folk metal band and had zero alacrity on stage. Alcest on the other hand, is delightfully similar to Agalloch in their harmonious doom, softened with clear and light vocals. Alcest is a band I don't mind seeing live, but I also don't expect liveliness from the crowd, or a pit. Yes, this sort of doom metal is something I want to sit at home and drink alone to- Not that I ever do that, but one can understand the powerful melancholy this music can pull over a person.  A trait of good doom metal is that it tends to lack true querulousness that is a mark of so many unmetal bands.

After two decades of metal-making, their travels bring them to Winnipeg for the first time, and once again I corner a band and get the information I so crave. I witnessed Enslaved with a mixed nationality group of fellow metalheads: one hailing from Israel and the other from Brazil, as well as my faithful drummer AJ. I ended up taking about 150 pictures of Enslaved, and several of them are close-ups which necessitated my running up on stage.

After the show, the four of us stuck around and asked about whether Enslaved would be available to hang out. We waited by their tour bus and watched their merch wench bring aboard their pizza and beer. Soon the band appeared one by one, freshly showered and smelling of Irish Spring soap.

Soon we were mixed in and chatting as I asked about the comforts and pressures of touring. Enslaved  no longer rehearse regularly- once, maybe, before a tour. Their jobs seem mundane in Norway, like being bouncers or bartenders in pubs. As for their partying? They party with Immortal, and they warn us not to party with Abbath. My Brazilian chum ended up striking a nerve when asking the band about how they felt about Burzum's music. The reaction was that they never listen to it because they were very close with Mayhem and Euronymous particularly. "Why would we listen to the music of someone who killed our friend?"  So it came to light that a lot of Norwegian bands are tight-nit and play together often. As for partying with Abbath... CRABWALK!

For personal interest, I asked the vocalist/bassist how to be a good front person, and he simply replied with "You must convince your audience. Believe what you're playing is awesome." He even gave me a hug. After I asked them if they spoke German (which they all knew a little) we all got pictures with the band, and then let them retire to their comfortable tour bus.

Song of special interest: Extended cover of "The Immigrant Song" 

The Zoo concert featuring Powerglove - Sep. 28th, 2011

September 28th was an interesting evening, with the bands The Absence, Blackguard, Powerglove, Sabaton and Evergrey playing at the Zoo. I didn't pay too much attention to Evergrey, who headlined and instead I was able to have a nice chat with the drummer, guitarist and vocalist of Powerglove after their set and asked them a few questions. After some relaxing after-show pipe-hits, we got into where Powerglove is headed, now that they have reached supreme infamy through rendering our childhood theme favourites into metal.

After gaining a lot of attention for their theme covers such as Tetris, Power Rangers, Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon (the latter having been performed with Sonata Arctica!) Powerglove have a bright future. I asked them about the possibility of releasing truly original music, and their drummer replied that they do indeed have original material. Their belief is that it is too soon to record or widely perform their own work until they gain a wider fan base. My belief is that their popularity will skyrocket when they unleash their full potential with fast, technical and delightfully tacky tunes.

As for their actual performance and stage presence, their drummer and vocalist/bassist eat up the stage and wear their plush clad well. Their guitarists sometimes seem stiff and shy, but with their high-hitched guitars, they do well performing amazing metal themes. I am very looking forward to seeing them again, and it was well known that most people came that night to see POWERGLOVE!!!

The Absence, on first

The awesome POWERGLOVE

True to their style