In Flames and As I Lay Dying L

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What is a metalhead supposed to do when there are two shows taking place on the same night at the same time at two different venues? While this frustrated me for a while, I decided that I'd attend both and just skip the bands that I really wasn't into seeing. After a long day at work I jammed home to get a quick bit to eat and then hit the road.

My first stop was the Showbox. While standing in line outside I ran into Kevin Talley, Misery Index’s drummer extraordinaire, who was handing out flyers trying to get people to leave and go to the Kataklysm show. I chatted with him for a bit and found out that only twenty advance tickets were sold for their show and they had been encountering the same problems on every date of the tour so far due to bigger bands (Machinehead, Slipknot, In Flames, etc.) playing on the same night. This information helped to solidify my decision to leave early and head across town to Graceland.

Once I got inside the Showbox I was stunned at how packed it was. Has In Flames gotten that popular or was everyone there for Killswitch Engage, whom I was going to skip out on? Eh, that’s all irrelevant anyway, just another one of my unnecessary observations. At 8 o’clock on the nose Metal Blade recording artists As I Lay Dying took the stage and belted out a killer 30-minute set of the music that is now being referred to as “Screamo.” While I’m not a huge fan of most of the bands in the genre I really like AILD, especially as a live act. They are energetic as hell and seem discontent to stay in one place for more than two seconds (not the best thing when trying to photograph them), they play their music proficiently even though they seem to enjoy swinging their instruments around frequently, the frontman connects well with the crowd, they have great hooks in a number of their songs and they rarely stray into the mainstay of modern metalcore; the ultra-repetitive chugga-chugga breakdown. Their set seemed to be comprised exclusively of material from their latest album, Frail Words Collapse and the crowd gave them a pretty good pop after each song. If you have any interest in metalcore/“screamo” music or just want to see a very energetic young band on the rise, check these guys out the next time the opportunity arises.

After a 30-minute break Sweden’s In Flames took the stage to a huge roar from the crowd. I stayed for around 6 songs and didn’t recognize a single one, which was not surprising as I’ve only listened to their last two albums a total of one time for each because I couldn’t stand the more mainstream, less melody and riff-oriented approach they have been taking. In their defense, I have to say that they are very good at what they do and seem to have a great time on stage. The audience seemed a lot more familiar with their newer material than me as I could hear huge numbers of people singing along with each and every song. If I heard something off of Lunar Strain or The Jester Race, I probably would have stuck around longer but the need for some real heaviness and brutality overwhelmed me so off to the Graceland I went for Kataklysm and Misery Index.