Front Line Assembly.

Last night I ventured downtown for a concert. I met two buddies, Hush and Sephiros for the show. It was an evening of EBM/Industrial music. I’ve never been to the Mod Club or in the Dufferin/Ossington area. Both were impressive. The first order of business however was food. The first plan was to try a pizza place Seph heard good things about, Pizzeria Libretto. Well we walked down there, about two blocks, to find he was right and everyone else has heard the food was good too… the wait was 30m+… so we bailed on that plan. We ended up at Brass Taps Pizza Pub. It was a cool pub, very dark inside and everyone found something on the menu they enjoyed. After dinner we ventured down to the Mod Club for the show. I found it awesome we were stamped with EBMfest upon entry. As I’m aging…I’m finding standing for hours on concrete for shows getting to be an increasing pain in the back. We tried to get into the venue early to find setting and gawds be praised we found the last three seats along the walk in the venue! It was a loooong show too… I would be been screaming if I had to stand for 5! hours.

Cyanotic opened the evening. I’ve heard a few of the songs on blip and was looking forward to seeing them live. They were admitted influenced by industrial and mentioned FLA and Skinny Puppy specifically. You could certainly hear the industrial influence, Their set was unfortunately short, but the songs they played brought the rock. Tons of guitar, and bombastic industrial drums, it was a solid start to the evening, a few of their killer songs : Beta Blocker and The Medicated Generation. I always find it curious where musicians stand on piracy. Lead singer Sean Payne encouraged everyone to download their music. *smirk*

Next was the curious Mind.in.a.Box. I’ve blipped a fair bit of mind.in.a.box, I was familiar with the odd vocal treatment Stefan Poiss uses. I still don’t know what I think of it… when he sang unaided he sounded like a combo of John Fogerty and Jeff Martin to me. Solid gritty rock vocals. I’m curious why he feels he needs the vocal treatment? I thought he sang great. Anyway… I was also impressed with MIAB. The material I was familiar with from them had me thinking they were very electronica, but live they were very much a rock/ebm band, lots of guitar. (There was tons of chung-chung guitar all night long. It was splendid!) MIAB played video with all their songs which were parts of a fictional story of theirs. I enjoyed their set.

Then the evening took a strange turn and there were back to back DJs. Now why bands are opening for DJs I will never know. The intensity of the evening seemed to die. They were not bad Djs nor did I not enjoy their sets… but they seemed out of place how the evening unfolded. DJ Acucrack had an intense set. (We joked he was from the future where all music was at 320 BPM) He tried to get the crowd going and asked them to move. Well, the crowd unequivocally responded with a No. *shrug* Then the real oddball was Conjure One who sounded a lot like the Middle Eastern influenced Delirium. Which is great, but not great before the industrial bludgeoning of Front Line Assembly. I think his set took a lot of wind out of the sails of most of crowd. It was just way too mellow to proceed FLA. A bit of a head scratcher.

Then FLA took the stage and musical order was restored. Wow… FLA’s set was intense indeed. Bill Leeb rocked pretty hard for 53 on-stage with guys half his age. It was hardly noticeable however. FLA had the acumen of a headliner. I think the crowd was a little zonked by the time FLA took the stage. The mod club was really freaking hot, it was a looong show and the Conjure One mellowing – added up to put the crowd in a bit of a daze. Keyboardist Jeremy Inkel was yelling at the crowd during the entire set with only short responses from the crowd. I know I was exhausted by the end of the night, and I was sitting. Frankly I think the evening would have been better without the DJs. Overall, a great evening of music and great company.

I bailed on hockey tonight… no way I could play tonight… so bagged.