Thursday night was a deviation from the punk rock and a trip to the land of metal! I went to see The Sword at Reggie’s Rock Club. Having only been a fan of The Sword for about two weeks, I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as this type of show went, or even what the opening bands would be like since this wasn’t a punk rock show. It turned out to be a pretty interesting crowd full of characters.
Black Cobra
Black Cobra
Black Cobra
Black Cobra
Black Cobra were first and when they took the stage and started playing I wasn’t paying much attention at first. Then when they hit their stride in the middle of their first song, which was a raging powerhouse of sound, I realized that there was only two people in the band! They had a guitar player/singer and a drummer but you’d be hard pressed to think it wasn’t a full band considering the intense wall of sound they belted out. It was one beating after another and I was really impressed with them. At times they reminded me a little bit of very early Isis before all the experimentation started. I was so impressed with them that I bought their record after the show.
Valient Thorr
Valient Thorr
Valient Thorr
Valient Thorr
Valient Thorr
Valient Thorr
As the next band, Valient Thorr, was setting up their equipment, I suddenly felt like I had taken a trip back through time back to the 1970s. These guys were all decked out in denim and had lots of hair and even beards. Either I took a trip through time or they found a tardis and warped here from that decade. While I was in the record store before the doors opened I could hear them sound checking and didn’t think too much of what I was hearing. However when they took the stage, they were nonstop energy from the first chord to the last. They had a huge 1970s southern rock sound that was really upbeat and the singer was an excellent front man with great stage presence and really knew how to work up the crowd. Speaking of the crowd, they went absolutely crazy for this band, they won over pretty much the entire audience in the matter of a couple of songs, myself included! They were really just a whole lot of fun to watch and they played some great music on top of it.
The Sword
The Sword
The Sword
The Sword
The Sword took the stage to a still extremely enthusiastic crowd. They were a well oiled machine of sludgy Sabbathy riffs and heavy sounds couple with interesting changes. Since they are in the process of making a new album, they busted out a couple of brand new songs which sounded great, along with playing a bunch of songs off their first album which sounded even better and heavier than it does on vinyl. They didn’t talk much between songs, they just delivered one killer song after another and the crowd ate it up. One completely wasted guy next to me never stopped yelling “fucking Sword, oh my god” in between every song. Heads were banging pretty much the entire time they played, the people loved them and for their set, I was one of the people.
The Sword
The Sword
The Sword
The Sword
Going into a show not knowing what to expect out of it, I left completely blown away by all three bands who sounded nothing like each other, but all equally impressed me. I couldn’t have asked for a more entertaining show and it was well worth staying out late and being a tired mess at work the next day to have witnessed it.
Additional photos from this show can be seen on MXV’s flickr stream starting tomorrow.
looks like it was an awesome show! great pics as always!