Review & photos by Andrew Bansal
May 20th 2014, House Of Blues Sunset Strip, West Hollywood CA: Still going strong in promotion of their latest album ‘Winter Kills’, Los Angeles’ modern metal veterans DevilDriver have embarked on a co-headline tour with Knoxville TN’s extreme force Whitechapel, along with support acts Revocation, Carnifex, Rivers Of Nihil and Fit For An Autopsy, making it an all-crushing lineup from start to finish. The tour began in Denver on May 17th and the six-band caravan made its way to DevilDriver’s home territory at the House Of Blues Sunset Strip last night to play in front of an enthusiastic audience that had turned up in good numbers to support the show. All of these are highly active touring bands, even by today’s music industry standards, and the onus was on each of them to vindicate their fans’ unwavering support and deliver a set that would compel these fans to return for the next show.
By the time I arrived at the venue at around 3:30 for my interviews, there was already a line of about 30 people waiting outside, which was already a good indication of a more than satisfactory turnout for all involved. Merchandise tables were set up outside the concert hall, and the overall vibe was undeniably similar to that of the Summer Slaughter shows that take place annually at this very venue. But this being the month of May, and the temperature in LA at least 30 degrees (F) lower than last week, it was a pleasant day out for all attendees, further aided by a brisk, cool breeze blowing at all times.
Doors opened at 5 PM, and at 5:45, the show began with New Jersey’s Fit For An Autopsy hitting the stage for a fierce 25-minute set that succeeded in waking up anybody who’d dozed off into a late afternoon slumber. Dominated by massive breakdowns, the band gave this show the heaviest start it could have possibly had, and got the circle pits in the crowd going, even at this early point. There was plenty of head-banging taking place on and off stage, and vocalist Greg Wilburn put forth his best effort by jumping onto the barricade to get closer to the crowd on several occasions. Fit For An Autopsy played four songs off of their 2013 sophomore effort ‘Hellbound’ and two off of the debut album ‘The Process Of Human Extermination’, and provided an entertaining 25 minutes for people that showed up early enough to see them. Besides their music and live performance, some of their merchandise items were interesting as well, specially the shirt with the band’s name written as FF⚡AA, in the AC/DC style font. And another notable thing was that their vocalist is easily the tallest frontman on this touring lineup dominated by short singers/frontmen. A good start to the show, by all means.
Fit For An Autopsy links:
facebook.com/FitForAnAutopsyOfficial
twitter.com/FitForAnAutopsy
instagram.com/FitForAnAutopsy
Set List:
01. Thank You Budd Dwyer
02. Do You See Him
03. The Wolf
04. Still We Destroy
05. The Jackal
06. Tremors
Reading PA-based extreme metal band Rivers Of Nihil suffered a major setback from a hard-hitting robbery in St. Louis MO last Wednesday, but recovered enough to carry on with this tour and here they were, delivering a solid performance that brought forth death and black metal elements probably more than any other band in this lineup and enabled them to stand out as a result. Vocalist Jake Dieffenbach’s growls filled the entire room with great conviction, guitarists Brody Uttley and Jon Kunz were excellent with their work, and the rhythm section laid a solid foundation for the band’s powerful sound. Rivers Of Nihil impressed on the recent tour with Broken Hope, and based on this set it’s clear that they’ll do the same on this tour as well. If you’re specifically into death metal more than other sub-genres of extreme music, Rivers Of Nihil is your band on this lineup.
Rivers Of Nihil links:
facebook.com/RiversOfNihil
twitter.com/RiversOfNihil
San Diego’s Carnifex came next with their own brutal 25-minute onslaught laying focus on their well-rounded and impressive latest album ‘Die Without Hope’ along with two tracks off of the 2007 debut effort ‘Dead In My Arms’ and the title track from ‘Hell Chose Me’ which was aptly chosen as the set-closer. This band has been around for longer than most people realize, and their musical style has definitely evolved, specially on the latest album, into becoming something that’s much beyond the ‘deathcore’ tag, even though the deathcore vocals and breakdowns can still be found in the music. Due to a number of reasons, I actually hadn’t seen Carnifex live since they played super-early in the evening at the 2010 Summer Slaugher show on this very stage, and the Scott Lewis-led outfit gave this audience a killer performance, getting the strongest reaction from the crowd so far and inducing a lot of action in the pit. Through the sheer impact they had with this set, Carnifex showed that they’re very much a live band and win new fans every time they take a stage, which they should be doing in plenty on this tour.
Related: Interview – Carnifex Frontman Discusses New Album ‘Die Without Hope’ + More
Carnifex links:
facebook.com/CarnifexMetal
twitter.com/Carnifex
instagram.com/Carnifex
Set List:
01. Slit Wrist Savior
02. Hatred And Slaughter
03. Dark Days
04. Die Without Hope
05. Lie To My Face
06. Hell Chose Me
Boston MA’s Revocation, newly signed to Metal Blade Records, were next to hit the stage with their brand of modern heavy metal interspersed with technical guitar-playing, old-school thrash segments and proggy tempo changes. In the current crop of younger bands, they’re undoubtedly one of the most compelling ones going around, and even though they tour with breathless regularity, they do so with a decidedly different headliner each time, not only presenting themselves to newer audiences as a result but also challenging themselves to appeal to metalheads of varying tastes. Here they delivered a truly fantastic 30-minute set with tunes off of their scorching 2013 self-titled album, a couple of older ones and a brand new unreleased track called ‘Madness Opus’ off of their upcoming Metal Blade Records debut. ‘Invidious’ clearly stood out as the highlight of the set, but there wasn’t a single dull moment to be had as guitarist/vocalist Dave Davidson combined excellently with other guitarist Dan Gargiulo, while drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne and bassist Brett Bamberger delivered what was probably the strongest rhythm section performance among these six bands. In all honesty and with no exaggeration whatsoever, I would say musically and performance-wise, Revocation turned out to be the best band of this show, and if you’re attending any of the remaining dates on this tour, serve yourself with the highly enjoyable treat that is Revocation’s set.
Related: Interview With Revocation’s Dave Davidson & Phil Dubois
Revocation links:
facebook.com/Revocation
twitter.com/Revocation
instagram.com/Revocation
Set List:
01. The Hive
02. Invidious
03. Teratogenesis
04. Madness Opus
05. Fracked
06. Dismantle the Dictator
The show was moving along very swiftly, with the changeover between bands having an air of uniformity and efficiency to it as exactly 15 minutes were allotted after every set. Soon enough, at 8:45, the first co-headline act Whitechapel took the stage for a highly intense and extremely well-received 45-minute set. They’d clearly brought a lot of their own fans to this show and they were loving every moment of this set. Led by the fiery pocket-sized dynamo Phil Bozeman on vocals, Whitechapel played a high-octane set which comprised three tunes off of their latest album ‘Our Endless War’ but despite its 45-minute duration it was a nearly comprehensive representation of the band’s 8-year, 5-album career. Besides bringing the best out of this crowd with his vocal delivery and on-stage energy, Bozeman addressed the fans between songs and proudly spoke of the band being one of the very few metal groups to have come out of Knoxville TN. Just like Carnifex, Whitechapel is another band I hadn’t seen live since 2010 when they participated in the Warped Tour. Throughout these four years, I kept hearing from friends and fellow journalists (including other Metal Assault writers) who got to see Whitechapel in this period, about how horrible they were, about how much deathcore sucks, etc etc. But to be completely honest, I neither perceived Whitechapel as a mere deathcore band, nor did I find them to be horrible by any means. So at the risk of being reprimanded by the metal elitist police, I’ll go ahead and say that I thoroughly enjoyed Whitechapel’s live performance, and the reaction they bring out of a crowd is second to none.
Related: In Conversation With Whitechapel Guitarist Zach Householder
Whitechapel links:
WhiteChapelBand.com
facebook.com/WhitechapelMetal
twitter.com/WhiteChapelBand
instagram.com/WhiteChapelBand
Set List:
Rise (intro)
01. Our Endless War
02. Section 8
03. Faces
04. I, Dementia
05. Possession
06. Prostatic Fluid Asphyxiation
07. Vicer Exciser
08. Mono
09. Worship The Digital Age
10. The Saw Is the Law
11. Possibilities of an Impossible Existence
And finally at 10 PM, hometown heroes DevilDriver appeared on stage one by one, laid straight into their one-hour set with ‘End Of The Line’ and went on their way to deliver a crowd-pleasing performance which got only got stronger with every song as was evident from the clearly heightening sense of excitement and growing energy levels in the crowd as the set progressed. This crowd was still large in numbers and thankfully none (or not many) of the hardcore Whitechapel fans departed the venue as I had feared prior to the show and upon seeing the lineup on paper. The guitarists, bassist and drummer in this band always put on a solid display on their respective instruments, so the quality and impact of a DevilDriver set is really a function of Dez Fafara’s performance level, and I’m glad to report that he was at the peak of his powers last night, probably more than I’ve ever experienced from him through my past five years of seeing DevilDriver shows. Besides coming out with a very strong vocal delivery, Dez seemed to be in excellent spirits and reveled in the atmosphere built up inside the House Of Blues by the band’s hometown fans, as he was all-smiles during the entirety of the set and addressed them fondly each time he spoke.
The set consisted of tunes off of the band’s newest album ‘Winter Kills’, including the AWOLNATION cover ‘Sail’, which was a strange choice to put on the standard edition of the album to begin with but upon hearing it live it’s clear why it makes sense for DevilDriver. ‘Gutted’ was another great inclusion from this album and its slow heavy grooves made it one of the highlights of the entire set in my opinion. Some of the older staples like ‘Clouds Over California’, ‘I Could Care Less’ the set-closing ‘Meet The Wretched’ were well-received as always, and overall this was the strongest DevilDriver performance I’ve ever witnessed. If they keep this level on the entire tour, fans across the continent have a lot to look forward to.
Overall, this was an excellent show from start to finish, treating the audience with varying styles and interpretations of extreme music, and after seeing the show it was clear that the order in which the bands have been placed in this lineup is absolutely perfect, not only presenting their music in a sequence the crowd can truly appreciate, but also serving justice to the respective statures and popularity levels of all the bands. For fans of extreme music, this is an ideal package to get another summer of concerts off to a great start.
Related: In-depth Interview With DevilDriver Guitarist Jeff Kendrick
Check out a full gallery of 56 photos from the show below, or view it here if you’re on a non-Flash device:
DevilDriver links:
DevilDriver.com
facebook.com/DevilDriverOfficial1
Set List:
01. End Of The Line
02. Head On To Heartache (Let Them Rot)
03. Not All Who Wander Are Lost
04. Before The Hangman’s Noose
05. Gutted
06. I Could Care Less
07. The Appetite
08. Sail (AWOLNATION cover)
09. Hold Back The Day
10. Dead To Rights
11. Clouds Over California
12. Ruthless
13. Meet the Wretched
Remaining Tour Dates:
5/21: San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
5/22: San Francisco, CA @ DNA Lounge
5/23: Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spade
5/24: Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater
5/25: Boise, ID @ Knitting Factor
5/26: Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factor
5/27: Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
5/29: Calgary, AB @ Marquee Beer & Market Stag
5/30: Edmonton, AB @ Union Hall
5/31: Regina, SK @ Riddell Centre
6/01: Fargo, ND @ The Venue
6/02: Minneapolis, MN @ Mill City Nights
6/03: Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
6/04: Joliet, IL @ Mojoes
6/05: Kokomo, IN @ CenterStage Bar and Grill
6/07: Knoxville, TN @ The International
6/08: Cincinnati, OH @ Bogarts
6/10: Toronto, ON @ The Opera House
6/11: Pittsburgh, PA @ Altar Bar
6/12: New York, NY @ Stage 48
6/13: Philadelphia, PA @ Theater of the Living Arts
6/14: Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Sound Stage
6/15: Charlotte, NC @ Tremont Music Hall
6/16: Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
6/17: Orlando, FL @ Firestone Live
6/18: Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution
6/20: Houston, TX @ Scout Bar
6/21: Corpus Christi, TX @ House of Rock
6/22: Dallas, TX @ Gas Monkey Bar ‘N Grill (Outside)
6/23: Austin, TX @ Mohwak
House Of Blues Sunset Strip links:
HouseOfBlues.com/LosAngeles
facebook.com/HOBSunset
twitter.com/HOBSunset
instagram.com/HOBSunset