Machine Head/Candiria

8/10/04 Worcester Palladium, MA

Live review

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The show was to take place in the evening, however the venue was overbooked this particular night. This is the same place that hosts the New England Metalfest every year; so you'd figure that they would have their shit together; right? Not this time. Since this event was both upstairs and down, they decided it would be best to add in a mess of local acts, making the show start earlier then originally stated. This was not a major problem, considering I only wanted to see two bands. Trivium and Twelve Tribes, who were playing upstairs. We finally get up there to a band playing. I wasn't sure who it was so I didn't care to go in. We rushed to the ticket counter to see that our passes from Candiria hadn't yet arrived. lame. We hear them doing soundcheck, we go to wait by the side stage for someone to come out. Ken comes out. I can't remember his name so I'd called him Mike, the only name I could remember at the moment other then Carley, which wasn't his name either. At this point we talk to him, after I made an ass outta myself I explained what was going on. We go up to do an interview with who else; Ken and Mike. Boy did I feel like an ass at this point. Ha. Back to the show, we got in and hung out in front. Samica ripped some pix and I watched as Candiria laid down some of their more commercial and melodic songs to date. Great set, the crowd was into it. Carley at one point, had the whole crowd jumping up and down like they were on pogo sticks and that's not an easy thing to do. Carley hits all the singing parts like it's his normal way to go after the mic. His screaming is a 'lil off but he has back up vox, so it's not too noticeable, but hey it's love, deal with it. When they go back to the material that gave them the name they have today, a lot of the crowd didn't know what to do. The songs were to heavy to dance to, or jump up and down with. Scary for NuMetal/MTV brats. It's even funny for the ones who dive at the mic, my favorite was when you could clearly see one of the kids in the crowd had no idea what the vocals were, so he just started mumbling. Good times......

Machine Head came up next, thank god. We weren't going to stay for any of the other acts. Machine Head is trying to regain it's spot at the top of metal, over the last 5 years they've become Metallica part two. Going from being a crushing band with Hardcore/Metal riffs and structure, to a band that is not remembering it's roots, and trying to grab a hold of the trends; and maybe even get a radio hit in there too. Tonight they were on top of their game , but still leaving out their classics. Which makes it a lot harder to deal with the fact they'd play the entire Burn My Eyes classic in Philly. I"m not sure what they where thinking when they brought out an acoustic. I"m sure it would be cool to get stoned and listen to it at home, but not at a Metal show. You wanna hear metal, not ballads. The bands were good. The two bands we came to see could have spent a lil more time remembering what got them there in the first place, and not stretch out their fans so far.

Reviewed by: Godawfulcommiepigfuckingbastards