Review: Arch Enemy 4/30/2006

#18
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Arch Enemy
Chimaira
God Forbid
9:30 Club

I missed both Temple of Brutality and Hate Eternal because I was torturing the dog by eating Popeyes. I would have been interested in seeing Temple of Brutality, as it's Dave Ellefson's (formerly of Megadeth) latest project. He has pretty hair. Hate Eternal I've not seen before.

Is this really only the second time I've seen God Forbid? Anyway, they are quite enjoyable. Musically, I don't know if they're really onto anything totally radical but I like the direction they seem to be going. Plus Dallas has real purty hair.

9:30 club was only about 3/5 full during God Forbid's set and by the time Chimaira came on it was only about 1/2 full. Then when Arch Enemy came on only about 1/3 of the crowd was left. The balcony crowd was only one person deep the whole time. So weird. I stood near the sound booth with the most uninterested looking punk couple. I thought maybe they were only interested in Arch Enemy but they didn't look any more exicited during their set either. I'm too cool to enjoy myself - fuck yea!

I guess this is my 3rd viewing of Chimaira. They're from Ohio - mocking all the Wizards fans in the audience. I was going to say that their keyboard player is just as useless as Chris from Underoath (who just hops around and holds down one key), but he sang some backing vocals so I'll give him that. They use a lot of effects and unfortunately the timing of some of them was way off (esp on the vocal stuff). Other than that it was pretty good. The people in the pit seemed to be enjoying themselves. None of them have particularly nice hair, but at least Mark got rid of those awful white-guy dreds he used to have.

Even though I've read a bunch of articles about Arch Enemy I had no idea they were from Sweden (which explains the big Swedish flag over the drumkit). I guess it's just Angela who's not Swedish. I can see why she seems like such a bitch in her interviews (saying she doesn't have to talk to fans) because if a bunch of drunk frat-types and disgusting middle-aged fat guys were yelling that kind of stuff at me I wouldn't like it (nor do I endorse them yelling at Angela). Even though I had one of those fevers where your skin hurts (I've been sick so much lately, ugh), I really enjoyed Arch Enemy. I think having a female singer is really just a gimmick, though, but it works. I didn't stay for the whole thing because I wasn't feeling well and because some guy with the total 'Merelen' accent (w/molester mustace) looked like he was going to talk to me. He didn't have pretty hair.