Taste of Chaos
By Nathan Blaney
Monday. Apr 10, 2:33 PM
live at Continental Airlines Arena (E. Rutherford, NJ) March 3rd, 2006.

While I was exited about Taste of Chaos beforehand, the show turned out to be a mixed bag. And that’s unfortunate, because much of what detracted from the show could have been easily avoided and prevented. Example: this tour is put on by the same folks who do Warped Tour, right? Well, you’d think they’d be a bit more knowledgeable about venues and stage set-ups. They chose to have this at a giant arena, and then divided the space awkwardly. Both the seats and general admission area were hardly filled… I have a difficult time believing the “sold out” claim.

One of the biggest things, which directly effected the presentation of the show, was the stage set-up. One large stage (and how many bands? 20?) with 15’ x 15’ of its side section set aside for the “b” bands to perform on. This is the area where you’d normally store the guitars and drums for the next band. Not only was this unfair to the “B” bands, but the sound for this “stage” was horrible and the lighting a joke. At one point, the lighting cut out completely. All members of the press who were there basically gave up shooting and listening to the “B” bands after the third one. It was pointless. As a result, I’m inclined to avoid a critique of these bands: they are likely much better than this performance demonstrated. Luckily, each did seem to have its own contingent of fans, so there was a moderately enthusiastic response regardless of sound, lighting, and performance. The Receiving End Of Sirens were probably the most well received. They are certainly not my sort of thing, but I understand why people might like them. Hopefully their fans were pleased!

All in all, I think the tour would have been better if they’d restricted the lineup to the “main stage” bands and held it in a more appropriate venue. Hopefully the other stops along the tour were better.

The main stage bands fell victim to some of what the side stage experienced, but overall they fared okay. Not great, but okay. Funeral For A Friend, Atreyu, and Story Of The Year all put on energetic, fun performances, but they were almost completely cancelled out by the astonishingly boring sets from Thrice and Deftones. This performance actually officially ended my interest in Deftones. What happened to the band I used to know? Awful.
I don’t think my standards are TOO high: I’ve seen some great shows put on under some pretty crappy conditions. So although I’m sure there were people who enjoyed this show, I just wasn’t one of them.
www.tasteofchaos.com

Nathan Blaney

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