Live-Metal.Net - Concerts: Superjoint Ritual, Lacuna Coil

First, Jaxx is a small club holding maybe 400 people. Located in a strip mall in Springfield, Va., it figured to be the perfect place to see these three bands on this "Off-Fest" date. For the most part, it was.

DEVILDRIVER
Devildriver was up first. Dez Fafara and company put on a decent show featuring "The Mountain," "Swinging The Dead," "Cry For Me Sky" and "I Could Care Less." While Devildriver is heavy, they lack stage presence. Maybe Dez needs to let his band play on their own a little instead of screaming over every part of every song. But all in all, they were pretty damn good.

LACUNA COIL
It's all about Cristina.

Lacuna Coil is quickly becoming very popular, which was evident at this show. About half of the audience seemed to be underage mall kids at maybe their first or second concert. Digital cameras and camera phones were up in the air taking shot after shot of frontwoman Cristina Scabbia; the rest of the band were just kind of in the background for most of the audience. Jaxx has to do something with its stage, at least raise it a few feet; it was nearly impossible to see the band from the floor. The band made up for it with great sound. At times they seemed like the headliner. Despite the club's problems and Cristina being the main attraction (can't blame anyone), Lacuna Coil were excellent overall. The songs from Comalies sound even heavier live than on disc. They played a longer, altered set from Ozzfest, which was refreshing to hear with:

SUPERJOINT RITUAL
I'm not going to even attempt to write about any select Superjoint songs. Let's face it, they're all good but sound almost identical to all the others. Instead lets focus in on frontman Phil Anselmo. He actually seemed mostly sober and aware tonight and funnier than ever. His between song rants seemed to last almost five to 10 minutes as he talked about the "counterclockwise circle," "hardcore crossover, " and "headbanging like it's 1980-fucking-7." At one point someone in the crowd shouted out " Dallas, Texas!" Phil replied, "Fuck no, I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. But I taught some guys from Dallas, Texas to play heavy metal this one time. They sure as hell didn't teach me." Good to see the Pantera feud is alive and well.

Other topics that Phil covered were the war; living for yourself and no one else; cops not doing their job right and that Superjoint won't turn into "some watered down radio metal band ... We will always remain hardcore."

The band played about an hour-long set, which included roughly half of the songs from their two releases, Use Once and Destroy and A Lethal Dose Of American Hatred. The music can best be described as sort of a Cro-Mags 2004, though harder, faster and meaner than they ever were.

Superjoint is going to do their thing for a while it seems, and they are building a hardcore fan base through their nonstop touring. And after seeing them 3 times, they are indeed what metal needs right now. Just ask Phil.