Protest the Hero and Unearth at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in NYC on 10/30/08

Last week, I had the privilege of seeing two of today's best metal bands perform at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza... and it turned out to be only an OK experience. And it had nothing to do with the bands, Protest the Hero and Unearth tore up the stage last Thursday night... but too bad the sound guy didn't do equally as good of a job, among other things. It all started off with the train showing up late to Fanwood. I initially took this as a good omen, because I probably would have missed the train by a minute were it on time (I thought it was a 5:40 train leaving Fanwood, but it turns out that's when it was leaving Westfield, it was 5:35 at Fanwood. I was down the block from the station when Chris called me and said that he saw the train's headlights). But for whatever reason, the train pulled up probably about 10 minutes after I got to the track. En route, we were stopped for a little bit due to some police activity (Today's police activity... arts and crafts!), but we eventually transferred in Newark and then made it to Penn Station. We met up with Matt Bradley and then made the long, chilly trek over to Irving Plaza. I had an extra ticket that I thought that I was going to have to burn, but luckily, whilst trying to decide where to grab some dinner, we ran into a girl from South Africa who just so happened to be walking past the venue, who just so happened to be a fan of Unearth, who just so happened to need a ticket. So while Chris and Matt were scarfing down some pizza (I ate before we left, thus the reason why I almost missed the train), I learned some interesting facts about our new South African friend (Charlize Theron grew up in her home town, NOFX recently played in Johannesburg but she didn't go because she isn't a fan, etc). So the pizza was ett, and we were ready for the show to begin.

We decided to get wrist bands because A) we're over 21 and wanted to flaunt it and B) we assumed we needed it to get into the balcony. Well, you know what happens when you assume, so we got purple bracelets that pulled the hair off our wrists for no reason. We didn't have the greatest place to stand for the opening bands, thus causing us to lose our South African friend, who chose to go back down to the floor. But by the time Protest the Hero came on, we had a pretty good view. To be honest, I don't even remember what song they opened with, because all I could hear was drums and a little bit of the singer. It took a couple songs for the sound guys to get the mix right, and even when they did, it was overall not loud enough. When your ears don't ring after a show, you know it wasn't loud enough. But they played very well (from what I could hear)... it was the last night of the tour, so they seemed kind of sluggish on stage, but that didn't really effect their performance. Most of the songs they played were from their new CD, "Fortress," including "Goddess Gagged" and "Bloodmeat," they closed out the set with the awesome song "Sequoia Throne," and they played my new favorite song, "Limb From Limb" (and they played the intro for the song, which is on the end of the track "Palms Read," which is an awesome song in itself). So again, they were awesome... their singer sounds great live, their drummer is amazing, the one guitarist has awesome hair, and the bassist gives off the impression that he is the coolest mofo in the room. It was just that the sound levels left something to be desired.

Unearth was on next, and I thought that they rocked as well. But again, the levels were all off, and the entire sound was way too low. I couldn't hear the sweet guitar in the beginning and end of "My Will Be Done," which is probably the best part of the song. But they did play everything that I wanted to hear: they opened with "Endless," they played two of my favorite songs ever, "Giles" and "Zombie Autopilot," and they closed out the show with "Black Hearts Now Reign," which is the song that made me become and Unearth fan. They seemed kind of tired on stage as well, but every now and then a stage hand would come out with a beer bong and have one of the guitarists do it while playing. And the guitarist (who had a glow in the dark guitar, by the way) did play the end of "One Step Away" behind his head... and they did fix the mix by that point because I was able to hear that guitar part. Again, overall it was an OK concert - the bands played awesome but crappy sound levels kind of ruined it.

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