Wednesday night I braved the frigid cold and crappy weather to go to the House of Blues here in Chicago to see The Black Dahlia Murder. I saw them play last fall with Cannibal Corpse and was pretty impressed, enough so that I left my winter hibernation to go to this show.
Hate Eternal
Hate Eternal
Hate Eternal
Hate Eternal
When I got inside the club there was already a pretty sizable crowd of mostly younger fans eagerly awaiting the show to start. The show started about a half hour later than scheduled due to the lineup changing and less bands playing that night than originally planned. At about 6:30pm, Hate Eternal took the stage and as the curtains opened, the crowed roared with excitement. The band ripped into their first song and from then on it was non stop double-kick drum driven metal with thrashing guitars. The singer growled like he was Satan himself and he was huge and menacing looking. During the rare parts where he wasn’t bellowing powerful growls, he was whipping his hair around violently, so much so that it almost looked like a weapon! The crowd ate it up and were moshing and raising their fists in approval.
The Red Chord
The Red Chord
The Red Chord
The Red Chord
The Red Chord
After a pretty quick equipment change, The Red Chord came out and started playing. They also played at that Cannibal Corpse show so I knew what to expect. What I didn’t expect was for them to outshine their last show here. They seemed to have gotten more brutal in their delivery of their brand of metalcore. No one in the band held still for more than 30 seconds while they were playing and they were super tight and energetic and the crowd fed off of that and there were bodies flying around at a steady pace. When they were finished I told myself that they are a band I’d go see again for sure sometime.
The Black Dahlia Murder
The Black Dahlia Murder
The Black Dahlia Murder
After the two great performances preceding them, The Black Dahlia Murder had some pretty big shoes to fill. The curtains opened and the stage was a sea of bright lights and they immediately got down to their task of brutality. In about one minute they showed the entire audience that they meant business and the audience reciprocated by jumping, moshing, raising their fists, head banging, and screaming out roars of approval. As the band delivered each song with a surgeons precision, the crowd went nuts. I swear at one point nearly the entire main floor was just one huge mosh pit. There were people crowd surfing and being launched into the waiting arms of security in the front of the stage. As each person landed in there (while I had to dodge flying bodies to get my shots), the security guards gently caught each and every person and got them back on their feet safely and escorted them back to the action in the crowd.
The Black Dahlia Murder
The Black Dahlia Murder
The Black Dahlia Murder
The Black Dahlia Murder
The band played a good mixture of older songs and newer songs and what I found interesting was the newer songs were getting just as strong of a crowd response as the older ones. They just loved everything the band was doing. Sure the old songs got a huge pop from the crowd, but during the songs the crowd kept a steady pace of their various displays of approval.
When the show ended and the lights went up, there were a lot of sweaty bodies and tired looking but satisfied people who would quickly cool off as they got outside for their cold trips home. Three solid sets by three good bands – I’d say it was time well spent and worth the trip out in the arctic.
A few additional photos from this show can be found on MXV’s Flickr Stream.
I actually saw the Red Chord play at the Green Door in 2005 (I’M OLD!) along with The Acacia Strain, Between the Buried and me and another local band. They were AMAZING. It’s great to see that someone else sees their spark.