Tag: upstate concert hall

Flashback: Summer Slaughter 2013 Gets A Mixed Review

If you take a few minutes to do the math in your head, Summer Slaughter is kind of a strange concept. The daylong event on August 10th, 2013, which circused down the road across major metal loving cities – big and small – is the self proclaimed “Most Extreme Tour of the Year.” It’s an indoor event — think lots of sweaty people crowded — so really, there is quite a bit of room, just like any hyped concert, for problems. Here’s the weird deal: among certain dissatisfaction of goers, bands, and other events, the term “extreme” should be taken in both positive and negative lights.

In each city, viewers were pleasured to the sound and visual power of one or two local or “lesser known,” bands. Most of the time, these slots were determined by contest winning. As for Upstate Concert Hall, these bands came in the forms of Hollow is thy Heart and A Ruthless Scene

Hollow is thy Heart’s name is as electrifying as their performance: strange, raw, and mysterious. Their sound was characterized by a mix of thrash, death, and metalcore. Although they were given the short end of the stick as far as sound issues and slot, the four-piece took to the stage like it was their last day on Earth and certainly cared about their job. We can’t say the same for the next crew.

A Ruthless Scene is from New Jersey (insert a bunch of New Jersey jokes here) who specialize in one thing: The Breakdown. For all those who listen to real music, and would not know otherwise, a breakdown is a slang term given when a guitarist plays one note over and over again to a specific, simple pattern. During the set, the band generally displayed a lack of energy and desire to sound like every other Sumerian-core band out there. To quote one person, “I wish I brought earplugs because A Ruthless Scene was ruthlessly annoying.” The next band, Thy Art is Murder, was more of the same.

Then, the story took an interesting twist. Quick-rise-to-fame “Aliencore” band, Rings of Saturn, demolished the room. Their signature speed picking was ever present, and their energy was no less sincere. “Kneel before my minions as they kneel before me,” the crowd screamed along with Ian Bearer, vocalist. After being accused of recording at half speed in the studio, then speeding everything up, Upstate Metal can confirm that everything done in the studio was done live. The only thing missing was abruptly departed bass player Sean Martinez, who took off just weeks ago. Still, this geared the crowd up for the next round.

Revocation and Aeon both are examples of unrelenting passion. If you have not been through a viewing of a documentary Why You Do This, it comes on high recommendation. The movie, which features the words of Gojira and Last Chance to Reason, outlines the many hardships an “up and coming” metal band goes through. Specifically, the movie points to how bands go through financial trouble on the road. With Revocation’s newest album just out, tour support is a must, and although life on the road can be hard, they still had fire in their performance. Equally, Aeon’s vocalist, Tommy Dahlstrom, was not present. Still, they persevered, leaving the crowd in awed respect.

One major source of controversy for this tour happened in the aftermath of Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe’s manslaughter charge (he was acquitted) were the rules of stage diving in many clubs. This required bands and fans alike to be aware that stage diving was forbidden. The Ocean, who are known for delivering a high energy, almost angry performance, took to Facebook when they remarked on the irony of calling “the most extreme tour of the year,” but stage diving was not allowed. Their performance was as loud and blatant: clear and to the point. Impressive, too, is their wide genre variety. Interestingly, their post warranted the attention of Summer Slaughter’s creator, Ash Avildsen. Although he was displeased with their remarks, the crowd was left quite impressed with their dynamic performance.

Impressive, though, hardly encapsulates the performance of Cattle Decapitation, who are musical veterans, but seem to have just began to gain more popularity, with their latest release, Monolith of Inhumanity. Decap’s music videos are controversial enough, but their performance was fast, angry, and honest. It would have been even better if Upstate Concert Hall had provided vocalist Travis Ryan with a microphone that worked for more than half the set.

What can be said about Norma Jean? The band was an underdog from the beginning. When the line up was first announced, the most extreme tour of the year was criticized for putting a band on the bill that played anything less than blast beats.

The rest of the show, of course, is history. Think of the stomping of feet as the entire crowd jumped to “Icarus Lives” by Periphery. There is some kind of force that comes over the crowd when certain bands play. It causes the crowd to sway and sing along, and Periphery has this angle. Or, how everyone’s mouth was wide open at the site of Animals’ as Leaders technical ability, or how the crowd asked “how could it all be?” To Dillenger’s onstage antics.

So, Upstate Metal talked about what would happen if we set up Summer Slaughter. Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s what would have happened if we set up Summer Slaughter:

1. Hollow is thy Heart

2. Revocation

3. Rings of Saturn

4. Animals as Leaders

5. Between the Buried and Me

6. Cattle Decapitation

7. Dillinger Escape Plan

8. Periphery

9. Decrepit Birth

10. Brutal Truth

11. Behemoth

March 26, 2014
Animals as Leaders leads unique mixed genre show in CP

Although the debate over whether or not God exists has raged for centuries, watching Animals As Leaders’ guitarist Tosin Abasi can make audiences believe the Big Man is walking amongst them.

Boombox

The boys headlined a show that promised an assortment of different types of music for concert revelers at Upstate Concert Hall on March 1st. Mixed genre shows are a foreign concept. They’re not yet popular in America with few big ticket shows giving credence to metal, jazz, and electronic dance at one event. This idea, however, is regular in European festivals.

Abasi, Javier Reyes (guitar) and Matt Garska (drums) could be considered among the best musicians in the world. Their headlining slot saw some of their easily recognizable stamps, such as “Tempting Time,” “Point to Point,” and “CAFO.” Their unwavering ability to stay true to their original sound – which has evolved with every release – is remarkable. By the time Weightless came out, Navene Koperweis (the Faceless, Navene K) had jumped on drums and gave the second effort more depth of field than the first album.

But for this album – and tour – Animals as Leaders are utilizing the talents of Matt Garska, whose ability to command each obscure song might leave the most hardened music enthusiasts wide – mouthed. While Garska mastered every older song, the band also played three newer songs, “Tooth and Claw,” “Lippincott,” and “Cascade,” which showcased both Reyes and Garska more than before.

Animals as Leaders experimentation from the start of the set to the end easily impressed both hard fans and those who had never heard the band play before. In hearing the newer songs especially, it was clear that the band will not grow tired.

After their set, the band took time to speak with fans about their instruments — they play eight strings and sometimes use oddly – shaped guitars that look they have just been cut from a tree — their style, as they don’t have a bass player, musical sense, and other matters, including Abasi’s obscure fashion sense.

However, Animals as Leaders were not the only defining force on this show. After the Burial, Navene K, and Chon supported the bill and got the attention they deserved as well.

Take for example Chon, who are essentially a (mostly instrumental) jazz quartet on crack. Although the audience was comprised of a few devoted fans, but it seemed that most people hadn’t heard them before that night. Many people might theorize that instrumental music, such as Scale the Summit, is hard to relate to because it has no actual message for listeners to be devoted to. By the end of the set, Chon was given the legendary “One More Song!” chant (they were not allowed because of set constraint).

Although Chon may just be getting their foot in the door, their use of clean guitar tones, jazz and fusion, and downright strange melodies will take them places. Although they might not be “metal” by classic terms, they have our stamp of approval – not to mention the hundreds they impressed at Upstate Concert Hall.

Chon’s music was not the most obscure. The night took a strange turn as soon as former Animals as Leaders drummer Navene K took the stage. His slot comprised of his current electronic project, in which he is the only member.

Although the audience kept an open mind to the electronic beats, one could tell that the mosh pit – type crowd did not really know how to respond to the beats and sounds. Navene K played on a strange drum set, but with the melodies he had written, one could easily tell that he is certainly a positive force for the metal community. He thanked the crowd for keeping an open mind by the end of the set. “I didn’t expect to be taking this on tour,” he said.

Inclusive with the light show, sound, and everything else, the presence of After the Burial was larger than life. The band was received in a profound enthusiasm. It was a typical metal show: circle pit, mosh, wall of death, and crowd surfing. They came out as silhouettes, stood as giants, and played each song with the incredible fierceness.

The band played some of their famous numbers, including a behind – the – back guitar performance of “Berzerker” by Justin Lowe. Additionally, they played songs off of their latest record, Wolves Within. Rarely faltering, drummer Dan Carle provided a prominent beat to every note the band played.

After the Burial’s defining moments were those in which the audience was commanded by their presence on stage. Although it may have seemed dangerous at times, they earned fans new and hardened the loyalties of their followers. Each band brought something different to the table to create a one of a kind experience. Although this type of show is not common, promoters certainly made the right choice in placing these four bands together.

March 5, 2014
A Packed Upstate Concert Hall Welcomes Back Umphrey’s McGee
Upstate New York only gets a few doses of Umphrey’s McGee in the cold of winter, but they sure heat things up at every stop. Kicking off their three nights in Upstate was a stand-out performance at Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park. The venue was packed, more so than it was last time the Chicago prog-rockers came to town, as the word has gotten out and Umphrey’s is becoming a draw who may have outgrown their usual Capital District stomping grounds.

A “Catshot” intro built up the crowd as the six members took the stage. These instrumental intros are unique to Umphrey’s and serve as an excellent way to give the show a rolling start. Picking up a pair of Headphones (more on that in a bit) just as “Phil’s Farm” got going, the solid 15 minute rocker built off “Catshot”, with Bayliss and Cinninger hitting great peaks with start/stops that gave a jolt to the crowd as they began a night of dancing. “Miami Virtue” had Jeff Waful’s lights come alive in a dark jam before bleeding seamlessly into “Professor Wormbog”, which had some Boyz II Men acapella vocals thrown in for a curveball before returning to heavy prog funk.

Warm lights accompanied “Morning Song” alongside Bayliss’ full flex vocals amid soaring guitar peaks. And if “Phil’s Farm” was the first blow of the night, “Mantis” held the knockout punch of the first set, clocking in at a shade under 20 minutes, with a “Jimmy Stewart” section, complete with lyrics.

During the show, I had the unique experience to test out the new “Headphones and Snowcones” feature that is available all Umphrey’s shows this tour. Comfortable and easy to manage, these were quite frankly a welcome accessory to the show. Not only do you get to experience quality, soundboard sound, but the pristine audio environment that creates a 3-D experience for your ears. The sound is crystal clear, and if you have Tinnitus like I do, you can adjust the volume and prevent further damage, while keeping out that hiss that ultimately takes away from the music. The only drawback I can think of is the cost: at $40, plus refundable deposit, it might be out of budget for some, but you do get a UMLive download of the show, so it depends on your personal preferences for how you want to hear the show. Given an opportunity to try this again, I would certainly pay to hear the band sound the way it should be heard.

Opening the second set with “Miss Tinkles Overture”, Umphrey’s brought back a “Jimmy Stewart” jam with additional lyrics. The hard metal rock of Jake Cinninger and Kris Myers tore up “Tinkles”, which can serve equally well anywhere in a set, but stood out perfectly to welcome the crowd back. “Push the Pig” had a dark bass groove from Ryan Stasik, eventually leading into “Roseanna” by Toto. With Umphrey’s, you are virtually assured an 80’s cover and the rarer, the better. Looking around the venue, only the older fans seemed to know the song, mouthing some of the lyrics while the younger fans sang along only with ‘Rose-an-na!’

Although it wasn’t jammed out, “Roseanna” did melt into a full band jam that pushed into the shred-metal of “Go to Hell” and then “Der Bluten Kat”. The last time Umphrey’s was in town, “DBK” clocked in at 30 minutes. This version ended up at only 27 minutes, not including “The Fuzz” that was sandwiched in between. There is no bigger jam vehicle for Umphrey’s than a solid “DBK” and it was great to hear another fantastic version.

A second installment of ‘Hey, Remember the 80s?’ came in the second half of the encore with Kris Myers introduced as Glen Danzig (and Jake Cinninger heading behind the drum kit), as we were about to get the classic metal group’s “Mother”. Myers knows his metal and you haven’t heard a cover done with such accuracy, let alone a cover of Danzig, until you’ve heard Umphrey’s “Mother”. A hot show with electricity teeming throughout the crowd as they dispersed, fans began making plans for the weekend shows in Syracuse and Rochester, part of the luxury of Upstate New York’s proximity to great music towns.

Setlist
Set 1: Catshot > Phil’s Farm, Miami Virtue > Professor Wormbog, Morning Song, Crucial Taunt, Mantis
Set 2: Miss Tinkle’s Overture, Push The Pig > Rosanna > Go To Hell, Der Bluten Kat > The Fuzz > Der Bluten Kat
Encore: The Weight Around, Mother

Download Ed Guidry’s recording of the show from Archive.org
February 12, 2014
Umphstate: An Interview with Joel Cummins of Umphrey’s McGee

The hype from all of the New Year’s runs has finally died down and right on its heels come the first announcements of the festival season. Sandwiched right in between though, and largely overlooked, is the winter tour where bands often times debut new material and dig deep for old fan favorites. Umphrey’s McGee tour has begun and the band is set to blaze a trail right through the heart of Upstate New York, all within the first week of February. The band will make stops in Clifton Park, Syracuse, and Rochester among many other dates across the U.S. The Chicago-natives recently finished a two-night standalone set at the famous Beacon Theater in New York City which has only led to more anticipation for these upcoming dates.

Writer Jeremiah Shea had a chance to interview with keyboardist Joel Cummins about the upcoming tour and their new album that is due to come out in the coming months.

Jeremiah Shea: What are your thoughts on the recent two-night run at The Beacon Theater?
Joel Cummins: It was a pretty awesome weekend. Being able to play the Beacon last year and then doing two nights this year really let us soak it in a little more. The Beacon is one of the greatest venues in the country, if not the world. There’s been so many great shows there and amazing performances that when you play there, you really feel like you have to step up and not just bring your A game, but your A+ game. You have to wow people in New York.

JS: Last year in January you guys played Buffalo and Syracuse on back to back nights before making a stop at The Beacon Theater; this year you’re hitting Clifton Park, Syracuse, and Rochester. Is there a reason you show Upstate New York so much love?
JC: A lot of it has to do with two things: where people are and how far you can travel between cities. Logistically, our typical limit is about 450 miles before you make touring increasingly more expensive. Coincidentally, there are a lot of good places in New York to play between Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany. There are a lot of good mid-size cities that we’ve been trying to build over the years. Since we played Buffalo in the Fall, it made sense for us to come to Rochester this time. We played the Harro East Ballroom one other time and had a great time there, so we’re psyched to come back. We haven’t played the F Shed in Syracuse before, so that’ll be a really fun night and we’re pumped to have Kung Fu out with us on that one.

JS: Are you guys doing anything special on this run of shows to celebrate the band’s 16th birthday?
JC: Every show is a special night to be honest; you know how we do it. We try to mix it up and play as many different things as possible. We have this website called All Things Umphrey’s where everything is in a database that we’ve played in the past. We can use that to go back and see what we’ve played and haven’t played in an area and continue to shred as much of the catalog as we can to keep it fresh for people. Once somebody has seen 8-10 shows, they start to hone in on what they haven’t seen yet; every city is different. We’ll go in and see that we haven’t played “Booth Love” or “Hurt Bird Bath” at a particular place in four years. It’s a really helpful tool for us to keep mixing things up. This is our typical biggest tour of the year between January and April and we try to hit every corner of the US. Our new album will be coming out in the first half of 2014, probably sometime in May, so this will kind of be the warm-up for that. My guess is that one or two of the songs that didn’t make the new album will probably get played on this winter tour.

JS: You made some mentions of the new album on your Twitter account. What’s on tap and is there anything you can share?
JC: Ya know, not too much at this point as we’re trying to keep it under wraps right now. I can tell you that we started by recording 16 tunes, 7 of which were brand new and 9 of which we’ve played live before. I think we’re going to end up with probably 10 or 11 tunes on the new album with some bonus material. There’s at least 5 new tracks on the album, I’d say, that we haven’t played live previously. I think that’s always exciting for the fans when you can kind of inject the set list with some brand new stuff for people. We also have a couple of newer ones that we’ve been playing pretty consistently for the past couple of years and a couple of classic Umphrey’s McGee tunes that we previously haven’t been able to hit perfectly with the studio takes. We finally got a couple of these where we really feel like we nailed the essence of the song and they fit the overall vibe of the new album which is definitely heading in a more hard rock direction; there are tons of great guitar riffs on this album.

JS: Does the band’s approach vary nightly depending on the venue or city? If so, how?
JC: It’s different every night and we mix up who writes the set list. On a typical day, we make a list of songs in the morning and people can add or subtract things depending on what they’re feeling. By the afternoon, somebody will pick it up and try to make a set list out of everything that’s been suggested. I think that really keeps it fresh, especially when you have different people writing the set list who think about it and approach it differently. We’ll typically try to always do a mix of newer and older material so that it’s fresh for everyone.

JS: How do you guys interject teasers into your songs live? Are they planned or discovered during your set?
JC: Most of the time if we’re teasing something, it’s happening in the moment. It’s very rare that it’s something that’s planned. I think one of the things that we all thrive on is that stuff in the moment where nobody’s really sure what’s going to happen, but you kind of try to pick up a song. That actually happened at The Beacon. We started teasing the Eminem song “Lose Yourself” and then it ended up kind of morphing into “Kashmir”. That was an example from this weekend where we ended up hitting a cool little patch of teases there, but it was certainly not planned.

JS: What do you like about touring compared to the festival circuit in the summer?
JC: I feel like when we do our own shows, we’re playing to our people; everybody who’s there is there for us. That’s always a really special thing when you can do these tours and really feel the excitement from the fan base. That’s the fun thing about the beginning of the year. With the festivals now, it’s such a great time getting to see so many of our friends all around the country. That’s kind of the highlight of the summer festival season whenever we get to do that. That’s also the time when we try to convert some new fans, so we definitely approach the shows a little bit differently. We’ll still try to throw in a few rarities or things that you might not expect to see us play at a festival, but when we play for the hardcore fans, I’d say that these winter tours definitely have the biggest variety of our catalog that you’ll see. I looked on All Things Umphrey’s the other day and in 2013 we played 329 different songs, so there really is a lot of room for variety. It’s really nice at this point to have that catalog selection where we can play so many different things.

JS: Does Jefferson Waful have any new tricks up his sleeve this year?
JC: He does! He’s actually in the process of transitioning from the grandMA console, which we’ve been using, to the grandMA2. I’m not totally sure if he’s going to have it up yet for these shows as it’s probably about a month-long process to make that transition and learn everything that needs to be learned. That is definitely new though and in the works for 2014, so it’s only going to promise to make the production and light show that much stronger. We’re always tweaking our light show and playing different things out depending on what the venues allow. This most recent run at The Beacon we definitely had our biggest light rig that we’ve ever brought to New York. We’re definitely trending in that direction of bigger and better, which is a nice way to trend. We’ve been really lucky with Jefferson that he’s such a passionate, driven, and really great artist behind the light console. There are plenty of moments during the night when the fans get excited about the music, but you know you have somebody who has a really great eye for art and a way to connect that to music when the lighting designer can elicit cheers from the crowd.

February 3, 2014