The Unholy Alliance Tour
By Guest Author
Monday. Jul 10, 12:12 PM
live at Aragon Ballroom (Chicago, IL) June 20th, 2006.

(by Max Cascone)

The night started with Thine Eyes Bleed taking the stage rather nonchalantly; they seemed to have just wandered onto the stage at the appropriate time. The bass player is Tom Araya of Slayer's brother. For an opening band at 4:30pm on a Tuesday, there was quite a large crowd on the floor, giving them a good reception. I could not take my eyes off of the lead guitar player's beard: it is truly a thing to be admired.

Children Of Bodom: really talented band, but I felt that they don't write to their ability. Frontman Alexi Laiho is a pretty incredible guitar player and definitely got my attention with some of his solos, but the drummer is uninspiring and I thought their songs were pretty straightforward and almost bluesy for a metal band.

After Thine Eyes Bleed and Children Of Bodom, it was time for the big boys to play. Mastodon have a unique stage presence, and their sheer power cannot be denied. The roar that projects from the speakers when Brent Hinds, Troy Sanders, and Bill Kelliher are all screaming, along with Brann Dailor's cacophonic prog-jazz-metal drumming – on his new polka-dot drumset (a tribute to Randy Rhodes) – is something to behold. “Blood and Thunder” opened their set, and the mighty 'Don could not be stopped. They dropped a song from the upcoming Blood Mountain album, and my feeling that this band has true greatness ahead of them was assured. When I stepped out of the photo pit and walked around a little, I got the feeling that some people still don't know exactly what to make of Mastodon. It seems that the older guys like myself are more receptive to it. Bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders is a real nutball on stage, striking many manly poses with his Fender Dimension; guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds is not far behind him in the great stage presence department.

Few bands make an entrance quite like Lamb Of God. Backlit by deep green spotlights pointed up from the stage, led by drummer Chris Adler, the Virginia quintet one by one took their places as the thunder began. Their set is relentless, with frontman Randy Blythe continually encouraging the ever-enlarging mosh pits all throughout the floor of the spacious Aragon. Playing songs from throughout their catalog, including a new song "Redneck" from the upcoming album Sacrament, the band tore through 45 minutes of – as they have called it – Pure American Metal. Toward the end of the set, the energy got really high. I ended up getting caught up in the moment and left my Canon digital elph in the pit. I chalk it up to experience, and I still walked away with 600 pics on my other camera's card.

Slayer. All afternoon, outside the venue, inside the venue, before the show, during other bands' sets, and in the bathroom, shouts of "SLAAAAAAAYYERRRRRR!!" could be heard. For me, when it comes to Slayer, the aura (and the simple enjoyment of yelling “SLAAAAAYERRR!!!” at every opportunity) surrounding them and their history is better than the music as it is today. On the other hand, they've remained as heavy as the day they started, while their contemporaries Metallica and Megadeth have ended up as completely neutered versions of their former selves. The photo pit became complete chaos a minute or two into their set. There were twice as many photogs as for the other bands, and the security seemed to be pulling people out of the crowd indiscriminately, not just crowdsurfers. The head security guard reprimanded me for hassling the people in the front row, trying to get whoever took my camera to own up to it. I immediately acquiesced to him, told him he was right and that I was sorry and let it go. When I left the pit, I was pretty worn out. I wandered upstairs and positioned myself to take some long distance shots with what was left of my memory card. The floor had become a seething mass of bodies in an undulating mosh pit that stretched from one side of the room to the other. Slayer mosh pits are not to be taken lightly, and as I experienced last year in the middle of Slayer's pit on the Jaegermeister tour, the entire floor becomes one big whirlpool.

After the show, I wandered around the front of the floor looking for my camera: a lost cause, I knew, but still. A security dude came up to me and we had a really nice conversation about the camera: he had kept looking for it throughout Slayer's set, and even thought he knew which kid took it and tried to get it out of him, it was to no avail. I told him that I really appreciated his effort; it was a very friendly way to end the night. I headed for the mash of people waiting for the stairs, and some dude offered me a beer for five bucks. I should have talked him down, but I didn't really care, and made the transaction. I guess I felt very generous that night, when you add that to the fact that in the bathroom area – where there was a beer cart as well, making the sale-deposit trip for the beer as short as possible – I asked a dude for a cigarette, only to be turned down: he said he'd bummed it. I told him I'd buy him a beer, and lo and behold, whaddayaknow, he DID have some smokes on him! I didn't care, I've told the same lie in the past.

Overall, the vibe at the show was pretty positive, at least for a metal show. Security was relatively benign, the time between sets was just about right, and the beer was as expensive as at the pretentious downtown clubs. Although, at one point, standing against one of the columns at the back of the floor, I remember a moment when I couldn't spot a single chick. It was metal, alright.
www.slayer.net
www.lamb-of-god.com
www.mastodonrocks.com
www.thineeyesbleed.com

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