Wednesday, December 2, 2009

All That Remains - Metalcore in Des Moines!





I took my daughter, Schatzie, to a memorable concert at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines.
Haste The Day opened up the evening and immediately someone spilled beer in Schatzie's hair. We found ourselves amongst folks who'd rather thrash and 'mosh' than just enjoy the pounding drums and buzz-saw guitar. So we got away from the moshers and basically endured the opening act.
Next up was The Story Of The Year, which I was really looking forward to hearing. They had a good set which was marred only by the fact that half of their performance was from their new, unreleased album.
The Devil Wears Prada stirred the crowd up and put on a good show. I'm not sure whether it was intentional or not, but the only sound I heard from the lead singer while he was "singing" was grunts and barks. These guys definitely had the metalcore/thrash thing down. The way the drums were rigged into the sound system, one could really feel that bass drum thrumming in one's chest.

The highlight of the evening, of course, was All That Remains, who had a great set. These guys (and gal) know how to perform. Yes, the bassist was a gal and she did great: good eye contact, good performance, and screeching backing vocals.
At the end, the lead singer was cleaning up the stage and throwing stuff out into the crowd; Schatzie reached up and caught what appeared to be a ball of wadded up paper. It turned out to be a listing of the songs the band planned to play. Their set was like a compilation of the best of their two most recent albums, The Fall of Ideals and Overcome.

Songs performed:
Before the Damned [This was a great opening song that built anticipation with the first few notes, then blasted out with machine-gun like guitars and drums.]
Not Alone [Track 2 from The Fall Of Ideals]
Air That I Breathe [Track 9 from The Fall Of Ideals]
Indictment [Track 11 from The Fall Of Ideals]
Chiron
Forever In Your Hands [What a geat song, and a fine performance from the band.]
Six [Track 7 from The Fall Of Ideals]
The Weak Willed [Track 6 from The Fall Of Ideals]
Undone
This Calling [Track 1 from The Fall Of Ideals]
Become The Catalyst [Track 8 from The Fall Of Ideals]
Two Weeks [the much anticipated finale]

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