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Sound Off!Your friendly neighborhood CD reviewer, thanks to his brother Joe and PIXY
103 FM had the great fortune to attend the 2007
Locofest on Sunday September 9th, 2007 at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield,
MA. Enemy Remains The Connecticut based band was the first performance I took in on the day. The drummer, Steve Zimmerman, played on the first three Fates Warning albums. Since they are one of my favorite bands, I definitely was interested in checking them out and I was not at all disappointed. The band had both a traditional metal sound with the progressive metal style in the mix as well. The singer, Brian Betterton, has an excellent voice and he used it to great effect during their all too brief set. (My brother ended up getting to talk with him after their set, said he was pretty cool.) The band had people working the crowd passing out a 3 song CD, and I got one of them. It’s well worth multiple listens. This band really has something going for it. You can check the band and a couple songs out at their Myspace Page. Meliah Rage
Boston thrash/speed metal legends Meliah Rage were always one of the bands I heard of, but never found the time to get into. Thanks to their set, I’m now going to have to make the time. The band was fantastic, tight musically and feeding off the rather manic energy of singer Paul Souza. When he wasn’t ripping through fantastic sounding songs like the classic “Bates Motel”, he was stalking the stage with a barely contained fire and brimstone demeanor as he screamed to the sky in rage. When I got to say hello to him later in the day, he still had a pretty intense air about him, but he appreciated that I had enjoyed the show. I know I’m going to be doing some remedial educating of myself on Meliah Rage and if you haven’t already, you can do the same at either Meliah Rage.com or visit their Myspace Page Storm Within Okay, I admit that I was interested in checking the band out because they had a rather hot looking woman on vocals. Debra Darlene looks great and really can work those looks on stage. Of course, if that was all there was to her, then I wouldn’t be writing much positive about the set. Thankfully, she has a KILLER voice that finely accompanies the traditional metal influences of the band. The band was incredibly tight musically, though I did miss most of the first song of their set when they ended up going on early. The one thing that surprised me was listening to them live, the vocals reminded me a little of ex-Chastain vocalist Leather Leone. She was a fantastic singer and for anyone to remind me of her, that can only be a good thing. The fact the band went on early, thus causing me to miss a part of their set was disappointing. They didn’t have any CDs available at their little set up in the artist’s alley area which was also a little disappointing. I ended up speaking with their manager who said they were in the process of finishing up work on their album. You can check them out at Storm Within.com or check out a couple of songs at their Myspace Page Swashbuckle
I’m totally blaming this one on my brother. He’s the one who wanted to check them out, I just went along with him. Guys dressed up as pirates playing metal, sure it sounds a bit gimmicky, but I figured what the heck, who doesn’t have some sort of gimmick these days. Well yo ho ho and a barrel full of suck. This was a truly awful musical experience for the 3 minutes I was able to last. It was TERRIBLE! It was so bad it made me embarrassed to be a metal fan because these idiots were out there representing the genre. Godhead
If you want to wash some truly putrid metal out of your head, I can think of no better way to do it than to take in a performance by Godhead. I was really only aware of the band through their cover of The Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby” and a video for another song I saw online months ago. However, these guys blew me away! Other than the headliners, Godhead gave the best concert of the day. They were that good. Brilliantly sounding rock with a real sense of musicianship can always win over even the most jaded music fan. Oh, and the closing song of their set, “Trapped In Your Lies”….freaking awesome! My brother ended up talking to the singer when he went to buy a copy of the band’s latest album The Shadow Line. Meanwhile I had a brief meet and greet thing with the guitarist a little later in the day. Check these guys out at Godhead.com or at their Myspace Page Leaving Eden While not quite as heavy as a lot of the other bands on the day’s lineup, Leaving Eden carved out quite a little spot for themselves alongside all the screaming heavy metal. The lineup featured two female singers belting out some top quality vocals and guitarist Eric Gynan laying down some excellent riffage, the band has good thing going. I ended up talking to one of the singers after their set while purchasing their CD Desolation. I compliment her on their cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”, which I thought they did better than covers of Zep songs I heard by Heart. Leaving Eden also benefited from the band playing after them not being ready on time. This left them getting the extra time to play 3 more songs than expected. One of them was a cover of Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch” and believe me, if you see them perform this song, you will NEVER be able to see the song in the same light again. You can check them out at Leaving Eden.com or on their Myspace Page. However, the lack of info, particularly on the actual names of the band members is a bit disappointing, on top of which, the blonde singer pictured in the band photos, isn’t even the blonde singer that was onstage during their Locofest appearance. Shadows Fall
Boston’s own new masters of metal are another band that fall into that “I know of them, but never got into them” category for me. There just isn’t enough hours in the day to check out every band that strikes me interesting. Well, they must be doing something right because of all the bands I saw before the three headliners, Shadows Fall had the area in front of the stage packed front to back for the whole set. While I’m loathe to use a term associated with crazy alleged murderer record producer Phil Spector, the band went out and created an absolute “wall of sound” as they decimated the crowd with a fantastic performance. Tight aggressive guitar work, slamming drums, and the powerhouse vocals from Brian Fair combined to bring the festival’s preliminary portion of the day to an amazing end. They must’ve been doing something right because one woman in the crowd was on someone else’s shoulders throughout the set and spent most of that time flashing the band. Yes, cliché as it was, there was topless action for Shadows Fall.com Queensryche
At one time, Queensryche was my bar none, top of the line, A #1 favorite
band. Of course a few rather pathetic CDs later, and they don’t get
that distinction anymore, but I still like them a lot. This was the seventh
time I’ve seen the band and since it was the first time I’ve
seen them since they got rid of guitarist/producer Kelly Gray (who almost
single-handedly destroyed the band), I was really hoping they would rise
to the unspoken challenge from me to be the live band I had known in the
past. Set List The Whisper Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper, the king/grandfather of shock rock, put on one heck of a performance. While I’ve never been a fanatic for his music, I do know quite a bit of the song selections he did for this show. And man, does he have a flair for theatrics or what? Cooper sounded great and hit the high points of his catalog with aplomb. It being the first time I had seen him live, I was a bit surprised to find myself a little bored during the stage act portion. I just wanted to hear more music. Maybe I’m just getting old or something, but I could do without the umpteenth time Alice Cooper is fake killed on stage if it meant I got to hear an extra song on the night. Musically though, heck of a set! Alice Cooper.com Set List No More Mr. Nice Guy Heaven and Hell
Despite the inability to legally use the Black Sabbath name, the Ronnie
James Dio fronted (and for my money, far better version of ) Black Sabbath
continues to kick major ass. I hate to sound too much like a gushing schoolgirl,
but seeing one of my all time favorite vocalists for the first time in live
concert performance was a dream come true. Ronnie James Dio knows how to
bring it and bring it he did! He’s a consummate showman and vocalist.
On top of all that, he’s working with freaking Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler
and drummer Vinny Appice! Really now, how the heck can you hope to compete
with that? Set List The Mob Rules Final Thoughts and Miscellaneous Notes It was a great day in general to be at the festival. 10 out of the 11 bands
I saw were excellent. Oh, that’s right, I happened to catch the end
of another band called Stone Crusher.
I didn’t mention them above because I didn’t really see much
of the set, but they sounded pretty darn good. They would be the 11th band
I saw on the day.
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