bright eyed and bushy tailed!

with dead hands rising: (second) I always forget how young these kids are. They had fun with the limited number of peole who got in before they played. A lot of other bands would be pissed about the lack of people. Bands like this are just there to have a good time.

arsonists get all the girls: singers swapped up vocals and singing. They really seemed too want to get down in the crowd's face, but it seemed harder cause of the barricade. The singer did get right down there.

sea of treachery: (second) it totally smelled like pool water when I got up there. A coupple of their songs had some BDM riffs verbatum. I liked the harded parts, but the clean singing wasn't really good. g2g. it was during their set that I figured out the mis-configuration in my camera that was messing up the flash.

classic struggle: I always thought they were a STF rip off. Guess not. The singer had this really painful sounding scream, but pulled it off effortless. It just sounded like more than he was doing. Maybe he was lipsynching. Hm.. Now there's a rumor you can take to the bank.

waking the cadaver: (second) I said to a employee that shall remain nameless "I wonder how long until a band like this has a DJ". They sounded just as ultra brutal as you would expect except the sound wasn't all that full. So there was a punch missing in the songs.

after the burial: everyone was drooling over kids ibanez 8-strings. I didn't notice until he started doing sweeps and then that was the shizzle bomb of guitars. Those high strings sounded sweet. He was also running ower chord on them and it sounded like a very 90's death metal end to a song. They were a big mix.

stray from the path: (second) they did a nu-metal cover of "break stuff" by limp bizkit. I often forget that with this generation, it was "ok" to like nu metal when they were in middle school. What a shame. Other than that, they weren't too bad. Young kids.

unexpect: sw33t musicians. sw33t music. If you didn't like them get bent there is more to come.

xtyrantx: (second) lease in the name of all holy and unholy do not let this band know that I made fun of their name. Pretty much the scariest band I have ever seen. Ever. EVER! The singer was cover in tattoos. All over his face and everything. We'll one of the singers. They had the crowd fight for a foot ball during their last 2 songs. Some kid easily won the first last song and then the last last song they didnt play schmere the queer. They played stomp. Both singers flew off the bar on to the melee. If more edge bands were like this, peole would think twice about making fun of straight edge.

unholy: thoroughly impressed as always. The singer waited before coming out and confused me. I thought he was going to be mia. I think they did that last time too.

recon: (second) holy cow. At some point this band went from an opener only their 10 friends cared about to a friggen ower house. They had massive pile ups on stage and in the end finished in what should be a stage closing crowd serge... Good joob boys. Nice to see that you have gotten a lot better.

Born Of Orisris: the bands on this tour have been having the worst luck. I think they are cursed. But these guys seem to be holding up better than other bands. The crowd loved them.

since the flood: (second) i would say that going to the second stage was a demotion for a band that's played on the main stage for years now, but i doubt they would have gone off as well with the barricade. STF on the second stage FTW. That last song was epic as usual.

impending doom: started late. The faceless singer? Or have i actually seen this band before. My brain am broken. The only lame thing about their set was the kid yelling bullshit about jesus. Dude, doo you know jesus? If you dont know him dont talk shit about him cause he's a rather sweet dewd. Once you get too know him (in the biblical sense)

ligeia: (second) sweaty sweaty sweaty. That in of itself is enough of a description of their time on stage. I got in there just in time for the 2 songs that I some what know. People in the crowd totally knew it and there was hilarious in the form of a stage assault. Keith was even taken hostage twice by the crowd. No lie.

winds of plague: the new keyboard layer is a girl. Go figure. Funny though, they sounded as good as the first time I saw them with the excetion of the keys. Oh well, kids in the audience were all over it even though without the keys, they sound a lot more hardcore. The photoit got a bit more busy for them. Hm...

thy will be done: (second) weird the crowd totally changed over for them. The singer ran around like a nutty squierrel. He kept running from the back to the front and then into the crowd. All while keeing his mane vertical above him

is divine heresy still on this? not that i care, but i dont really want to just sit around for an hour before meshuggah takes the stage. any inside info rev?

they are off the schedule and there is a blank sot there but they still have the time. so idk.

stick to your guns: they started (ahem) 10 minutes late. They goot the time tacked on the end of their set though. Im guessing they are starting to eat up the time from the bands that cancelled, broken up or what not. Their was was a crowd favorite. I watched the last 1/2 from the back and wow... Kids were really into them. Sad I missed pictures of that. One of the guitar layers looked like he was singing all bleeding heart whiney. Good thing I couldn't hear that.

hemlock: (second) I knew that their set would be laxed in the number of people in the crowd. I really like their CDs, but it's mostly for metalhead and metalheads are not at the show yet. They are still getting drunk in theirrhotel rooms.

vanna: not the best band to put on the main stage. The crowd thinned out to get dinner and there was 0 crowd interaction. That's the thing you need with them. No barricade. I hope they gget demoted to the second stage next year. That would be a show.

Tony Danza Tap Dance Ext (second) craziness. Mostly on the part of the people on stage. I can't even begin to figure out what they are doing there. Whatever. The croowd stage dove a bunch.

emmure: they had a massive crowod response. On par with TAS last night. Same shinnanigans too. The crowd loves the breakdowns. Even if certain CT people don't.

Full Blown Chaos: (second) I got up there right before they woke up all those demons. They are a full 5 piece now. Weird. Still, lots of people abusing each other.

a life once lost: they played a moshuggah song second which ruled to be in the front and here. I wonder if meshuggah heard it.

shai hulud: (second) its astounding howw much this band puts into their set. The entire front row was screaming along with them. I sort of wished that they would have been on the mainstage, but what ever. They layed songs off their upcoming CD that people in the audience already knew... Pirate's of the music. Arg..

eluveitie: yes! Their CD is so awesome and soo are they. It sounded just like the CD. Some of it was samples... Actually, the more i look, the more it sounds too good to be live. Especially the fife. Absolutely too good. They also had a set of twins. One of the girls on the side had a weird instrument that you cranked up and played keys. Anyone (heavensjail) have any info on the about of back tracking?

tyr: they were almost all that i could want. No back lining of anything and there were only standard instruments onstage. They had the drummer and bass player from eluveitie. Nothing I like more than a shirtless dude singing ballads to me. Unless it's 3 shirtless dudes singing to me. Horray!

turisas: I saw a bunch of ewoks on the side of the stage. Then they came on stage. Wow.. This is so campy awesome i cant stand it. The accordian sounded perfect. Nothing quite like the mixture of an accordian and a violin. The furry leggings and shoulder carpets just added to it. People in the crowd wrote TURISAS on their forehead. Um... Ok there supergenius. Unless it wasnt a sharpie. Then maybe i was played as the fool. With the number of psyched kids, I can only think that maybe the whole dragonforce thing has its positives as a gate way drug. Let's hope.

this is awesome! the pagan fest should be called the HEY HEY HEY fest as every band gets the crowd going with HEY HEY HEY chants. damn foreigners!

DAMN, I'm sad I'm missing this, I just could not fucking afford it this month

$45 plus beer really adds up. Urgh.

yeah, the pagan fest was worth admission alone. cant wait for the NYC show may 22nd! i get to see more than 5 songs by each band hopefully!

and now i just heard that meshuggah ain't going on for another hour even though divine heresy cancelled. GAY!

45 minutes until meshuggah. they just started loading them in.

first.

dick

Was trying to post from my phone but it kept fucking up...

Eluvitie was fucking awesome, the instrument was a hurdygurdy. And ensiferum was the best band in history, great show! petri rules

oh yea, and FUCK THE TRAFFIC ON 495

im really glad i ended up going. it was definitely a good time. i honestly didnt watch many bands but all the bands i came to see were awesome. hulud had a small but very enthusiastic crowd. played 3 songs from that within blood. a couple split songs. a couple from hearts. the song that they did from the new album is actually set your body ablaze rev. i guess they re recorded it for the new record. so they really didnt play any new new stuff. and no the album hasnt leaked yet :( tony danza was really really good. i really need to check out their new album. the new drummer and 2nd guitarist really add to the quality of musicianship in the band. played 3 old songs. kids did stuff kids do. it was cool. meshuggah played a pretty short 45 minute set. was quite impressive though. the pagan fest bands were great. i was so surprized to see the reaction they got. kids went absolutely nuts. pires compared it to dragonforce last year, or a couple years ago i cant remember and i would agree. other than that it was a lot of breakdowns and a lot of deathcore.

oh and it was funny to see the complete lack of a pit for emmure, instead a bunch of kids jumping up and down in baggy pants with metal thingys hangin off. i watched them for a song cus i thought itd be funny, it was worth it for the laugh and knowing that they now have the nu metal audience they deserve, then decided itd be more fun to smoke a bowl in my car.

REPORTED

finally home.3700 pictures to go through.

finally home.3700 pictures to go through.

yeah, 495sucked.

damn it, just sorted them all... not time to process them.

sum pictures.
so fucking slow with out my laptop

I'm not sure about the amount of backtracking for Eluvetie, but the piper/fifer twin had a headset mic on, so it's quite possible that all his parts were live. I was also confused about this until he was doing vocals just standing around on stage, because the mic was almost perfectly camouflaged by his beard and caveman afro.

When I was in Europe, I didn't get why people were so high on Turisas. Now I know, but they still need to have more songs that are as good as "Rasputin" before it makes sense that people are wicked high on them.

fudge, I fell asleep working on pictures.
laptops dying is a bitch.

what exactly failed on your laptop?

the video card i think. im almost at work nooow and hoope they can fix it asap.

Unexpect kicked ass and Paganfest was awesome. Tyr deserved 9 million more points of appreciation but peoplez is faggitz.

Yo Rev,
NO review on Meshuggah??? Also, was Ministry any good?

C'mon, finish strong!!

need sleep.

my work laptop was handed off for one second and magically came back to life after they saw the issue and said it was a motherboard, it magically came back to life.

the paganfest bands were awesome. the highlight of my night was finally getting to see tyr. they kicked ass. i left after ensiferum. wanted to see meshuggah, but didn't want to wait around for divine faggotry to play, so i left. the 4 bands i saw were well worth the ticket price.

wish i could've seen unexpect again, but i was helping my roommate move out and i didn't see the point in seeing a band i've seen before, then waiting around for 4 or 5 hours to see the other bands i wanted to see. glad to hear people enjoyed unexpect. i'm sure i'll catch them again when they come through new england next time.

divine heresy didn't even play. you should've stayed. but from my count, i think meshuggah played 6, maybe 7, songs. they should've played for an hour easily considering divine heresy wasn't there. we waited forever for them to come on stage. at least there weren't constant strobe lights flashing like always, but they replaced the lights with PLENTY of rock smoke.

oops, I just found that the randomshots from sunday didn't upload.
uploading now.

damn, i wish i stuck around for a while.

so much fun. saw lots of friends I hadn't seen in a while and met some new ones. I wish Meshuggah would have played for an hour. 45 minutes seemed too short. Also, I liked Nate Johnson on vocals for STF. STF had some Canadian singer briefly after Chuck left the band; he just didn't pull it off for me. Last night was the first time I heard STF with the new vocalist and it was awesome. They definitely sound a little more metal now with him.

I loved seeing Tony Danza again. It had been over a year since I last saw them.

And Recon was awesome to me. My friend Alex sings for them now. Really cool to see him hit the stage again after jammin around on guitar and stuff for bands for the past few years.

I'll probably think of more stuff to say later. enough for now.

great photos, rev.

just thought of something else to add: the bouncers were really great to the crowd surfers and audience in general. they weren't too rough or assholes to the kids at all, that I saw. I was really impressed with that. During JFAC, day 1, some kid puked on one of the bouncers then after they pulled the kid out of the front, he finished it up and puked all over the floor. Nasty. Don't eat a 4 course meal and drink a gallon of liquid before a show if you're gonna "throw down" because you'll throw up. oh.

Reverend the fife, or tin whistle playing dude from eluvitie had a mouth mic, which is why it sounded so clear as opposed to doing it into a standing mic.

heard divine Heresy broke up, dino ate the band members

hahahaa

no, the singer pushed dino off stage some how and then they got into a fight.

how was Ministry? i was really close to driving out to seem them and Meshuggah, but i fell asleep. the setlist looked questionable, though, as i'm not really into much of the new stuff.

as a ministry fan for more than 1/2 my life, I was let down.

im surprised oyu didn;t mention you're reaction to ensiferum rev unless i missed it, yeah paganfest was just totally rediculous it was amazing, and unexpect blew my fucking mind

wait what, are you serious or just jokes

yeah I totally had no idea what to expect with Paganfest. I was standing by the stairs and as soon as I heard a bagpipe, I ran down to see who the hell was playing and it was Eluveitie. I was so impressed. Totally dug the other bands after, too. Tyr should have played before them, though.

montreal's show = much better

i figured. wish i could've gone to that one

as a ministry fan for more than 1/2 my life, I was let down.

That's why I didn't go. Thanks for the update.

other than eluvitie was not in Canada

Anyone have Born Of Osiris, Impending Doom, Winds Of Plague, Emmure or A Life Once Lost's setlist's?

Bad music.

i asked what they played, not what your opinion of them are. fucking idiot.

they all played breakdowns

I did tell you their setlist. Idiot.

my photos are up...

MESHUGGAH:
http://photos.tomcouture.com/p331026399/

Ensiferum:
http://photos.tomcouture.com/p123302186/

Turisas
http://photos.tomcouture.com/p530649732/

I only shot Turisas and Ensiferum for someone to show that kids were REALLY into the paganfest thing.

I just found this on my phone.

Oh i knew a turisas song. I think from monday mornings on WNYU.

ensiferum: yet another awesome band that i would never have gotten to see. They all came out with similar kilts on. As typical, the keyboardist was a girl. They were surprisingly my favorite out of all the paganfest bands.

divine heresy: broke up.

They gave mike hsu a lifetime achivement award. That's pretty awesome. He wasnt execting it at all.

meshuggah: an hour and a bit later and the band finally hit the stage. They sounded good and all, but I was a little let down. Probably also cause I was mad tired and all the sitting around.

ministry: I was completely disappointed. I've loved this band since a teenager and they came out with huge cages, backlight strobes and sounded like a thumping wall of noise. This is their last tour and all the best/older songs come at the end of the set? Lame.