Sounds of the Underground Tour
By Taylor Green
Monday. Aug 22, 12:58 AM
live at Shoreline Amphitheatre (Mountain View, CA) July 23rd, 2005.

When I spoke with Slo from Unearth about Sounds of the Underground, he referred to it as a more user-friendly alternative to larger festivals like Ozzfest. Did he ever hit the nail on the head. In a time of 20-minute sets and corporate music domination, Sounds of the Underground was a festival which contained the fan connection and band camaraderie that other festivals have been missing in recent years. Gene Hoglan of Strapping Young Lad was out playing drums for Opeth, Jon Miller of Devildriver filled in on bass for Strapping Young Lad, and Ken Susi and Slo from Unearth came out to help on bass for All That Remains. Overall, the bands were there as friends having an 11-hour concert and doing what they love to do the most: connecting with the fans.

The day started off with Devildriver at the crack of noon, and for frontman Dez Fafara, that's early. So in response to making him get up early, Dez and company destroyed the crowd, blazing through their first album's hits and a good variety of new songs. The set ended with a massive circle pit and set the pace for the rest of the show. So it was up to second act A Life Once Lost to take it up a notch, and boy did they follow through. The set was amazing and ended with frontman Robert Meadows getting into the crowd and blowing the place up. Next came All That Remains, with the sole purpose of bringing it up even higher. And frontman Phil Labonte drove the point home, jumping up on amps, getting into the crowd, and just bringing out full intensity. I described the set afterward as the best 25 minutes of my life.

And then it was Madball, whose sole purpose was… to make sure everyone was respectful to the hardcore scene? What!? I swear I heard frontman Freddy Cricien pleading to the fans not to be mad more times than they had songs. And with two-minute songs, they had an almost 15-song set. I figured that would be a good time to enjoy what else the festival had to offer, seeing as not only is hardcore not my scene, but I don't like being asked politely (aren't they supposed to be hardcore?) to enjoy a set. Walking around the booths, the prices for merch were very low, on par with most normal shows. Most CDs were $10 or less, as opposed to other festivals that have actual vendors marking up prices. And even more awesome was the free meet-and-greets that bands were doing throughout the show. Opeth had a huge line early, and though I didn't get to meet them, I got stuff signed by Unearth, All That Remains, Devildriver, and Chimaira without having to buy their CDs, which is good because I already own all their stuff anyway. There was a video game booth where bands took on other bands: I believe Lamb Of God took on Unearth in a game of Halo 2.

When I was done with the excess, I went right back to the stage just in time for Every Time I Die to blow the lid off the place. It was interesting to see five second stage bands from last year's Ozzfest on this tour, but they definitely delivered in their headliner-esque spots here. Every Time I Die's set was awesome, and before them, Throwdown had a mixed reaction before they tossed out a cover of the Sepultura classic "Roots Bloody Roots" to drive the pit wild. But the big early day band was Norma Jean, who reinvigorated the crowd with a good mix of tracks from their last two albums (though I was disappointed they didn't play any Luti-Kriss stuff). Strapping Young Lad came on afterward to "fuck our assholes," and that’s exactly what they did. Devin was as funny as brutal, crashing through some classics mixed with the new track "Love?" He even blessed us with a song that had a chorus because he "didn't feel like playing anything else." For the first five hours of the show, Strapping Yound Lad was definitely the most entertaining of the large amount of bands, but it was the band afterward that would get the place to flip out.

In the 20 minutes it took to do the set change, fans erupted into "GWAR!" chants at least seven times. Slaves ran around 90% naked trying to put things in place, and the set started off with a friendly message from the church, proceeded by frontman Oderus Ungerus killing the pope, just one of the many people to be killed in Gwar's short set. Blood splattered, people were sprayed, fans rejoiced, and afterward the entire crowd was a sea of green and purple from the multicolored spew sprayed on us. What fun! It was clear that Gwar was the band to see here for nearly 70% of the audience, and they disappointed no one, packing as much trademark Gwar as they possibly could in 30 minutes.

Of the seven "headlining bands," all but From Autumn To Ashes were in attendance, and each delivered their own unique output of metal. Poison The Well started things off, but Chimaira was really the first true headliner on the tour, opening with a great setup for "Pure Hatred" and delivering two tracks off of their upcoming self-titled release. Next came Opeth, who played the best four-song set I've ever seen in my life. Opeth lived up to everything expected of them, and even graced us with one of their new tracks which was simply amazing. After Opeth came Southern rock jazz metalers Clutch, who captivated the audience for another amazing 30 minutes. And with Clutch's departure, so went the sun for the final two acts of the night.

Unearth exploded onto the pitch black stage with fury far surpassing what I saw from them at Ozzfest last year. An onstage presence accompanied with the success of their most recent album drove the fans nuts, and many of the people in the audience were damn happy they were the final band before Lamb Of God. But when the hardest 30 minutes of the day was done, it was time for the true headliners to get up on stage.

A band like Lamb Of God seemed to be in a weird spot to headline Sounds of the Underground. Before they were announced as the headliner, I believe Opeth was setup to headline… and I thought that was awesome, because they are right on the fringe of being a non-mainstream band, but at the same time command more respect than almost any metal band on the scene today. And giving Opeth an hour to explore their huge catalogue of epic tracks would have been a marvelous finish to such a night. But when Lamb Of God came out, it was really clear to me why they were the headliner. Not only was Lamb of God the band fans came out to see that night, but it was their clinging to what the tour was about – the camaraderie and fan atmosphere that mainstream bands seem to lose after a while – that Lamb Of God really captivated with their set. Mentioning the fans' support for bringing them from a second stage Ozzfest band to a headliner at the same venue just a year later and referencing playing old shows at San Francisco's niche metal locale, The Pound, Lamb Of God was in touch with the roots of what the tour was about. And they delivered the true closing punch, busting out the first five tracks on their latest album, the three highlights of As The Palaces Burn, old Burn The Priest material, and closed with the amazingly heavy "Black Label," having the second largest circle pit I've ever seen break out during the final breakdown of the song.

I had my reserves going into Sounds of the Underground, but I've definitely been converted and cannot look at summer festivals the same again. This is a festival that is for the fans before the money, and it really proved itself in its inaugural run on the market. I cannot wait for next year's show to roll around. I'll definitely be in that ticket line.
www.soundsoftheundergroundtour.com

Taylor Green

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