Bullet For My Valentine / Burden Brothers - 5/7/07

The initial crowd that scampered into the venue were the under 21 years of age variety, & there were alot of kiddies there with their parents, while the older, 21+ crowd mostly hung out towards the back & I noticed that the bulk of the 21+ crowd got there later, probably because doors opened at 6 PM & I would imagine that alot of them couldn’t make the show that early, due to work. All That Remains were originally scheduled to be an opening act, but had to cancel due to transportation issues.

Bless the Fall took the stage first, & they played a mix of emo-core with tinges of metal, & I couldn’t help but notice that the really young kids LOVED this band & went absolutely crazy for them! I enjoyed their set, which was fast paced, energy filled, & flowed very well, & the band announced that they were playing the Warped Tour this summer as well. I was actually surprised to see that the band literally jumped off the stage, & went right to the merch stand to sell cd’s, meet fans, take pictures, & sign autographs!

The Confession were next on the bill, & this band really impressed me with their metal guitar riffs, shredding solo’s & really strong vocals! The band really reminded me at times of Avenged Sevenfold, & I just loved their set, which mixed classic metal with modern hard rock, & the bands singer kinda reminded me of a Brit version of Scott Weiland, while the bands 2 guitarists reminded me of younger versions of KK Downing & Glenn Tipton from Judas Priest, & I can’t ignore the fact that the bands drummer kicked ass!

Ok, so the entire crowd was there to see Bullet for My Valentine, & the crowd got what they were waiting for when Matt & the boys ran onstage, with guitars in hand, & rammed their neo-shred metal down the throats of the music hungry crowd! There was a pretty good mosh pit going through most of the bands set, & this was the first time I’d seen the band use their huge banners that sported guns & their logo, & I really got a great metal vibe from the entire show..the essence of Bullet for My Valentine is shredding guitars, & I really think the band owes a great amount of debt to early Metallica, particularly “Ride the Lightning” era Metallica, & the band even did a great cover of “Creeping Death” which was totally amazing & dead on with the original version!

The audio mix was stellar, the vocals were clean when Matt sang & muddy when he growled, & Moose reminded me of a better version of Lars Ulrich, setting high uptop on his drum riser, & keeping the show totally anchored in dead on beats! The twin guitar attack reminded me of all the great classic metal bands, like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, & Metallica, who laid down chugging rhythms with shredding guitar solo’s, & it’s clear that Bullet for My Valentine are at the top of their game, & they even played a brand new song off their upcoming cd, which should be released later this year hopefully!

This was an interesting show because all the bands were metal based, but all 3 bands had different styles, & the show actually ended early at a little after 10:30 PM, so with the night still young, I headed over to the Ottobar to catch The Burden Brothers, which features the Toadies former singer Todd, & since I had such a great time catching both shows, I wanted to share a pic I took at the Burden Brother’s show with you..the Burden Brother’s are really tight, they have 3 guitarists at varous times in their set, & Todd’s vocals are amazing & he still has that same vibe that he had in The Toadies, just the band is totally new, totally different, & really interesting to see live. The entire band hung out after the show & I got to say hello to them & they told me this was actually their first show in Baltimore, so hopefully they will play here again soon & when they do, it’s well worth checking them out!