Photos Courtesy: Mehul Patel, Graveyard Classic
With bated breath, I stood there right up-front, right below the stage set up for none other Virginia-based metal-heads Lamb of God, headlining for the very first edition of the Summerstorm Festival! Up there on the top of my list for bands that combine great technical music with killer lyrics, this is one gig that had me on the hooks before I even experienced it. Lamb of God is well-known for their note-to-note replication of their music from their records to their live shows. From Randy Blythe’s(vocals) shrill screams to Chris Adler’s(drums) pounding double-bass, I was sure that this was going to be one helluva ride!
After the opening acts governed by the likes of Scribe(Mumbai) and Extinct Reflections(Mumbai) (I missed the other 2 bands), the mini-moshes were set to motion around Palace Grounds. The crowd was getting restless amplifying chants for ‘Lamb of God’, ‘Randy Blythe’ etc. etc with continuous requests from the security to move back. A couple of technicians came up on stage to test the instruments, and the sight of firangs gave the sweat-drenched, restless crowds high hopes which were short-lived. All bum and no fart! That wasn’t the band unfortunately! After staring quite a while at the LoG drumkit, wrapped in the ‘Wrath’ cover, I caught glances of John Campbell(bass) on the side of the stage! Woohoo! This was it! We got off the seat we reserved for ourselves on the muddy floor, for the moment we’d all been waiting for, was here!
Kicking off with the intro The Passing, everybody was just ecstatic, eager to catch the first glimpse of the band. Randy and the boys strode in to the thunderous roar of a very mixed crowd, including people from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh etc.! All hell broke loose and Palace Grounds, Bangalore was set ablaze by a killer of an opener- In Your Words off the Wrath album. Every person around me-man, woman and child, was jumping, headbanging, fist punching and a plethora of other psychotic acts. There were quite a few who could not handle the violent mobs, and stepped out before the track ended. Randy’s vocals were inexplicable. It sounded even better than the record to some extent, mainly because I have the man behind the killer growls standing right before me! Next to follow was Set to Fail, which too, is off the Wrath album. Mark Morton (guitars) was chopping away to glory accompanied by his comrade, Willie Adler (guitars). A better response was received for the songs that followed, which included Ruin, Walk With Me In Hell and Blacken The Cursed Sun. Somehow, I did not feel quite at home with the way Descending off the Sacrament record was reproduced. But better vibes followed with all the remaining songs- Dead Seeds, As The Palaces Burn, Laid To Rest, Vigil, Contractor, Hourglass, Redneck and Black Label.
I didn’t expect As The Palaces Burn to figure on their setlist here, but what the heck?! The more the merrier! Screaming along to Dead Seeds gave me the goosebumps- Betray your prophets, dead seeds buried deep/An army of men will prey on the weak/Betray your prophets, dead seeds buried deep/An army of men will prey on the weak. What great showmanship they displayed! Randy introduced Laid To Rest to us, as a song we may have heard off video games. For many of us, that was exactly how we got hooked on Lamb of God! The crowd participated with the band with See who gives a fuck! chants to lay the Ashes Of The Wake song to rest, to be followed by the eerie and sinister guitar intro from Vigil. Chris Adler deserved special mention for the final songs the band played. He belted out beats that kept the atmosphere pumping with high levels of adrenaline for the mosh pits. The last four songs were sure-shot mosh songs, with Randy calling for circle pits on both sides of the stage. On May the 15th, I had witnessed and took part in, what is sure to be one of the craziest moshes ever! Every person in the crowd was under a frenzied trance and lost control of themselves when Randy handed us our mother*ckin’ invitation! The only we could ever need! How true can the truth be and what a spectacular sight it was indeed!
The band announced their final song- Black Label, which is popular for its instigation of the Wall of Death, a Chef’s Special from the Lamb of God mosh-kitchen! It started off with the very familiar industrial-metal drumming. The anxiety that had built up in the veins of many, for several months found its vent in the form of this song. Randy called for the biggest circle pit this country has ever seen, and that’s exactly what he got! So chaotic but yet so beautiful... My freedom can't contain but tell me/ The pain I liberate/ Riff hostility to anyone/Has made us so much hate... The pain and suffering... I know, with these words and the resonating distortion of Mark’s guitar, Lamb of God closed their first show in India. Highly impressed with the turnout of people, Randy, on several instances, had hinted that this might just be the start of something big in the Indian sub-continent. Having already opened for the four biggest names in metal, namely- Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer, Lamb of God is riding high on the waves of their success. I’ve been praying on my knees ever since, hoping Randy might be able to convince any of the big-shots down here!
All in all, it was an insane show, except for a few problems I encountered, probably due to the position I stood at! The vocals and leads were overshadowed by the pounding from the bass drum, in my opinion. But, I wasn’t in a very acoustically favourable position to jump to conclusions there! After last attending a Porcupine Tree gig, the mixing sounded a tad bit shabby here. Lamb of God has a policy to openly offer their PAs to the bands opening for them, to give them an equal footing. Unlike normal gigs where the headlining act is louder than the rest, this was not the case. Certainly the mark of great musicians! But, this led to a sort of monotonous level of sound from the beginning to the end, without that extra blast of sonic energy you were expecting, from when Lamb of God takes the stage. Besides that, I was counting on them to belt out classics like 11th Hour, Grace, Omerta etc. Even though they played 16 songs, the set felt very short to me. Time flies when you’re having fun or something.... wasn’t that how it goes??
It has been tested and verified- their stage-presence IS something to die for. No kidding. With highly technical music coated in groovy riffs, backed by intellectual lyrics and killer vocals, it sure is a nerve-wrenching task finding any sort of criticism against this band. It is difficult even for a first-timer, to resist pounding his fists out to the band and headbang along with them. Having established a respectable name for themselves in the American metal scene, Lamb of God have come a long way from their initial Burn The Priest era. The attitude Randy throws on the stage is the same he shows off it, as you can evidently see on their Killadelphia DVD, which is exactly the sort of demeanour the crowd wants from him. It would be an understatement to say that Lamb of God kicked some major ass that night. Now that I’ve got the real taste of ‘pure American metal’, I certainly expect more of it in the days to come. Walk with me in hell! \m/ Cheers!
