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“Balls, Volume and Strength” part deux
HELLYEAH (live pix)
MACHINE HEAD (live pix)
NONPOINT
BURY YOUR DEAD
February 5, 2008
9:30 Club
Washington, D.C.
By GREG MAKI
What started as an excuse for a group of veteran rockers to have a little fun has taken on a life of its own and kept HellYeah on the road for nearly a year. On the heels of last fall’s “Balls, Volume and Strength” tour, the band is trekking across the country on the appropriately titled “More Balls, More Volume, More Strength” tour. And they’re bringing one of the very best American metal bands with them.
The show began promptly at the early hour of 7 p.m. A mostly empty 9:30 Club greeted hardcore outfit Bury Your Dead. I’ve seen these guys before, and though the vocalist has changed, it was more of the same. Hardcore is a hard genre for me to embrace. Most of what I’ve heard is too unimaginative and repetitive to hold my attention. That essentially describes Bury Your Dead, but I must admit the set closer, with the repeated line “Bury the fuckin’ dead,” has grown on me a bit.
Nonpoint did a better of job of energizing the crowd, though they seemed to be just warming up when their 30-minute set came to an end. The band is supporting its fifth studio release, 2007’s Vengeance, but the shining moments were a pair of songs from 2005’s To the Pain—“The Wreckoning” and the searing “Bullet with a Name”—and “What a Day,” their original breakthrough single. They made the most of the stage’s cramped confines, somehow finding a way to infuse the set with the energy typical of all of their live shows.
NONPOINT SET LIST: Witness, The Truth, March of War, What a Day, The Wreckoning, Bullet with a Name
To this point, occasional chants of “Machine fuckin’ Head!” had broken out throughout the club. They only grew louder and more focused as Robb Flynn and company stormed the stage with a thunderous 45-minute set. Songs from last year’s masterpiece, The Blackening, are even more brutal in a live setting, their extended lengths becoming even more epic and dramatic. The crowd, which filled half of the venue at the most, made enough noise to make you think it was a sold-out show if you closed your eyes. Flynn repeatedly expressed his gratitude to the fans and remarked that, as a fan of the old D.C. punk/hardcore scene, this is one of his favorite places to play.
ROB FLYNN OF MACHINEHEAD
MACHINE HEAD SET LIST: Imperium, Now I Lay Thee Down, Aesthetics of Hate, Old, Halo, Davidian
Though there were considerably fewer people in attendance on this night than there were when I saw HellYeah in Baltimore two months earlier, you would never have known that from the band’s performance. They ripped through the same set—the entire HellYeah album, plus a cover of Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” (renamed “Stone Cold Wasted”)—with the same passion, energy and good-time attitude. They are sort of a heavier AC/DC and every show feels like a party. But that isn’t all they are about; “Thank You,” once again dedicated to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, remains a poignant moment, and frontman Chad Gray sounded as genuine as they come when he thanked the fans, saying, “You could live without us, but we couldn’t live without you.”
The turnout for the show indicates the cycle for the debut album probably has run its course. But the record’s success quickly exceeded all expectations. In a year or two, when HellYeah reconvenes, hard rock/metal fans have a lot to look forward to.
VINNIE PAUL AND CHAD GRAY OF HELLYEAH
HELLYEAH SET LIST: Matter of Time, Goddamn, Nausea, Rotten to the Core, Stone Cold Crazy, In the Mood, Star, One Thing, Waging War, Thank You, Alcohaulin’ Ass, You Wouldn’t Know, HellYeah
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