Review by Darshun, photos by Andrew Hernandez
October 27th 2015, The Regent, Los Angeles CA: Los Angeles-based alt metal/art rock band Failure concluded a three-week US headline tour as a four-piece in support of their latest full-length album ‘The Heart Is A Monster’, with touring guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens Of The Stone Age) who also contributed guitar work for four tracks on the album. In the final week of this tour, Failure arrived in downtown Los Angeles with support acts … And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Local H, to play a long set in front of a packed house at the Regent. Our writer Darshun was in attendance. Check out his review of the show.
The opening act of the night was a 2-piece from Chicago that 90s folks would remember, Local H. Surprisingly they played their hit, ‘Bound To The Floor’ (which some folks know it as the copacetic song) which was third in the set. This set was my first time seeing them live and it was an energetic one. The drummer, Ryan Harding, kept a good pace with Scott Lucas as he belted their rock anthems and strummed his guitar. Near the end of the set they busted into a rocking rendition of Peter Gabriel’s hit, ‘Shock the Monkey’, which was very unexpected but cool.
Set List:
01. The One With ‘Kid’
02. Leon And The Game Of Skin
03. Bound For The Floor
04. The Misanthrope
05. John The Baptist Blues
06. High Fiving MF
07. Shock The Monkey
08. Heavy Metal Bakesale
The second act of the evening was the Austin, Texas quartet … And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, also known as Trail Of Dead for short. The band began in a frenzy from the start with ‘Will You Smile Again?’ The drummer, Jamie Miller, was pounding away on the snare with breakneck speed while the others were keeping pace. After about a minute or so, the tempo slowed down for the verse to be sung by Conrad Keely. The cool part was the drummer switched to guitar while guitarist Jason Reece sat on the drum throne. This switcheroo happened about two times during their set. A few songs stood out from older material, but the songs were a bit lackluster for my taste. I’m not a big fan of the band and only got into them midway into their career, some songs I dig from their repertoire but it was mostly miss for me than hit.
Set List:
01. Will You Smile Again?
02. A Million Random Digits
03. The Lie Without A Liar
04. Another Morning Stoner
05. Mistakes & Regrets
06. Catatonic
07. Caterwaul
08. Relative Ways
09. Totally Natural
Well, last night at the Regent was interesting. Failure played a long set, 21 songs to be exact. In the middle of that 21, was my jam, “Moth.” I was happy they were playing it, but the mix didn’t sound as I anticipated. I was hoping for loud rack toms for the intro part of the song, and then the arrpeggiated part wasn’t loud in the mix. I guess I was hoping for a similar reaction to when I first heard the studio version of the song at a used record store in the late ’90s. Yeah, my expectations were a bit high since the band got back together, for them to play ‘Moth’, but now I understand why they didn’t before this tour. It just doesn’t translate well enough to be exactly like the studio version. I’m on the fence as I write this now, it was a good show overall, but I was bit let down from just that tune. But I have to note that the new songs sounded great with Troy playing guitar and a dabble of synth. ‘A.M. Amnesia’ and ‘Snow Angel’ were gems of the evening for me.
Troy was having an issue with his Axe FX for his guitar throughout the night, but at least not every song. This is one of the reasons why I dislike Axe FX, not only because it’s goddamned expensive, but even regular air-pushing amps fail too. But I pondered, what if the house speakers and monitors are having an issue? Well, that’s for the artists to sweat, not the fans.
Anyhow, it was certainly nice to see the four onstage together again like 1996-97. The new songs sounded very much on-point, which was the saving grace for me in regards to the show. And hearing three songs off of “Fantastic Planet” for the finale was the cherry on the top.
Failure photos:
Failure set list:
01. Hot Traveler
02. A.M. Amnesia
03. Snow Angel
04. Atom City Queen
05. Counterfeit Sky
06. Petting the Carpet
07. Mulholland Dr.
08. Something
09. Moth
10. Frogs
11. Dirty Blue Balloons
12. Smoking Umbrellas
13. Pillowhead
14. Solaris
15. Another Space Song
16. The Nurse Who Loved Me
Encore:
17. I Can See Houses
18. Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode cover)
19. Stuck on You
20. Heliotropic
21. Daylight
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