Brandon N. Schory
So it’s finally time to talk about the Alter Bridge concert this weekend. This was put off as I found out yesterday afternoon that my friend Anthony had an extra ticket to that evening’s The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello)/Serj Tankian concert. (Thanks again Anthony, you are the man!) I thought I would just save this and wrap up both. So here it goes.
The Alter Bridge (with Another Animal opening) show was Sunday night, over at the Roxy. Apparently with the Fenway area clubs closed for renovations, everything has been moved to the Roxy. It’s an interesting larger-size club and a lot nicer than the Avalon, both aesthetically and acoustically (which isn’t saying much considering how bad the Avalon is). On the other hand, they don’t know how to utilize the space quite right for the sound system they have. They had the mix up way too loud, so much so that being near the stage for Another Animal was painful. Unfortunately a lot of the detail of the high end was lost due to the poor mixing. Thankfully they turned it down a bit for Alter Bridge, and those guys are just so musical and awesome they cut right through the nonsense, but it made it hard to really evaluate Another Animal. That’s how it is with any concert though. The opening band always gets a raw deal when getting mixed, while they take forever to perfect the sound for the closing act. All in all a good venue, but I prefer the Paradise Rock Club and Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theater (which, from what I hear, is somewhat akin to the Orpheum, which I’ve never actually been to).
On to the show. Another Animal was interesting despite the mixing problem. They’re basically Godsmack with a new lead singer, and they still sound a lot like Godsmack. Their slower stuff sounds like Godsmack’s first album, and everything else sounds like their later stuff. It was a cool band with some good guitar and good songs. I was never really in to Godsmack, so they don’t really rock my world or anything, but it’s listenable, and something I wouldn’t turn off if it came on. If you at all like Godsmack, it’s worth checking out I think. In any case, their lead singer, Whitfield Crane, is a badass guy with a pretty good voice and presence.
What is there to say about Alter Bridge? It’s really hard to put anything about them in to words. When they play live you can see just how much they all love performing. They have amazing presence and, unlike a lot of modern bands, they really know their songs inside and out. I first saw them in 2004 on their first tour for their first album, and seeing them then made me really listen to and love their album. This time was no different. Their set list was the vast majority of their new album (including doing “One By One” live for the first time that night), as well as all the best songs of their first album “One Day Remains”. Their performances of things like “Find the Real”, “Open Your Eyes”, and “Broken Wings” were just as amazing as the first time around (and a personal treat for me), but their live performance of Blackbird just blew me away. Blackbird is an amazing track on the album (and probably the best song they’ve written to date), so to say it’s so much better live is really saying a lot. You can really see them pouring themselves in to every moment of it (specifically Myles since it’s a dedication to his friend).
Speaking of Myles, I knew going in to it that he was supposed to be a pretty good guitarist. It was really amazing to watch him keep right up with Mark Tremonti through all of the rhythm parts, and even do a few of the solos that I was sure Tremonti had played on the album. No one can compare to Mark when he really goes off on a solo, but Myles really held his own and showed how talented and dynamic he is. He also surprised us with a couple of covers he performed without the rest of the band. The first was Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, which Myles has a great voice and feel for. He just let the song flow through him, instead of trying, as so many do with that song, to recreate the original (or the Jeff Buckley version which is just as popular). Later on in the show he broke in to a great rendition of Robert Johnson’s “Riverside Traveling Blues”, played in the tradition slide guitar style on a badass Dean resonator guitar. I’m torn between which cover of this I like better, Myles’ or the one Eric Clapton did on “Me and Mr. Johnson”. It’s a close call.
The final surprise of the evening was the first song of the encore, when they brought Whitfield Crane back on and had him sing lead on a cover of AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie”, with Mark Tremonti playing the role of Angus, sans ridiculous stage moves. It was an awesome cover, but I would have really loved to see Mark or Myles duck walk across the stage. If you’re going to cover AC/DC, someone has to do it. All said and done it was an awesome concert, and you all should try to catch them on tour if at all possible (and go pick up the album already, I’m not going to tell you again).
Now, the Nightwatchman/Serj concert Monday night at the Paradise Rock Club. In one word: AWESOME! I’m gonna get the only bad thing of the night out of the way first. The Paradise Rock Club is a small, intimate venue, with, unfortunately, two large poles in the middle of the floor. These are easily worked around though, and rarely cause a problem for viewing the show. The key to all this description is to show that this is no place for you aggressive douche bags to try to mosh and push your way through the crowd. For the love of Christ there were signs posted everywhere telling you about this. Now I’m all for mosh pits in huge venues where there’s lots of room and people can get out of the way if they don’t want to be involved. They can be a lot of fun to watch and be in. At these small clubs though just deal with your angsty rage bullshit and enjoy the show and leave the people around you the hell alone. To all of you awesome other people, if you happen to be directly behind one of these douche bags, do us all a favor: when the security staff isn’t looking just sock the bastards as hard as you can in the back of the head. They’re angling for brain damage anyway, so it’s cool. Bonus points if you break their spines.
On an up note, to the security of the Paradise, you guys rock. Thank you so much for keeping people cool and ejecting that one douche bag who couldn’t stop running in to the people around him and screaming inappropriately at the band (I have never heard a crowd erupt so loud as when that guy got ejected). The loser was high out of his mind too, which made it all the worse (my guess is mushrooms or acid, he was definitely seeing something that wasn’t Serj). If you have to get that wasted to enjoy a show, you should immediately remove yourself from society by any means necessary. The human race will be better off if you never procreate. (That said, if you wanna get drunk or high, and be mellow and cool and not a pain in the ass about it, more power to you. So long as I don’t have to deal with it.)
Enough ranting, because the show was really awesome. The Nightwatchman is apparently a persona of Tom Morello (I guess), even though he broke ‘character’ a couple of times, after one particularly badass, angry song, “not bad for a Harvard geek”. The set was everything I would expect from him, but I think more badass than ever. It was just him and an acoustic guitar (and the occasional harmonica) singing angry rebel songs. It really kept with everything Serj and Tom have been saying about how our country is going to shit and we need to do something about it. He definitely gets the prize for the easiest approach to whipping a crowd in to a frenzy. It was a “f*ck you, I’m Tom Morello, you are all going to f*cking scream and get in to this right now” kind of thing. It was awesome. I’ve never screamed so loud for so long at a concert. He played a good half hour to 45 minute set, with Serj joining him for the very mellow and beautiful”Lazarus on Down”, a nice touch in a great song. He ended with the complete version of Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land” (not the censored version you hear which is missing some verses), with everyone singing along at the top of their lungs, and him demanding that we “jump like Rage Against the Machine was on stage”. A really solid set and I’ll definitely be picking up the album.
About a half an hour of set-up later Serj finally came on. He’s even more dynamic a singer in person than I could have imagined. For someone who is generally so mellow and peaceful, he really let’s go and gets deeply in to the songs on stage. From the insane to the mellow he is the ultimate showman and performer. He’s also rounded up a great backing band, including a really badass drummer. The entire set was a highlight, everything was just awesome. Of special note, mostly because it was completely unexpected, was their cover of the Dead Kennedy’s “Holiday in Cambodia”. Serj and band are probably the only people who could have really pulled it off, and the crowd really went wild during it. Definitely try to catch these guys while they’re on tour, and pick up Serj’s new solo album which should be out soon.
To bring the weekend full circle, I realized that Whitfield Crane (lead singer of Another Animal) was at the Serj concert, and I was standing next to him the whole time. Awesome weekend, and you all should make sure to pick up the Alter Bridge, Nighwatchman, and Serj Tankian albums ASAP (and if you even kind of like Godsmack, the Another Animal album too).
Ciao,
-B
Links:
Another Animal
Alter Bridge
The Nightwatchman
Serj Tankian
