Well, after being for four days upon U.S. soil and having saw all the snow I have seen in my whole life I thought it was time to check out the local Metal concerts. The first opportunity came with the HELLYEAH tour that featured MACHINE HEAD, NONPOINT and BURRY YOUR DEAD as special guest.
So, after planning my route (yahoo maps rule) I took my Chevy on the highway listening to 80s Rock with a twist of Metal radio station. I arrived at the venue half an hour before the starting time to realize that there was a long human line waiting (and freezing) to get into the club. After about 40 minutes I made my way inside The Pearl Room to realize that I had lost the chance to see BURRY YOUR DEAD upon the stage (sorry guys).
NONPOINT is a Nu-Metal band hailing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida that was formed in the early of 1997. The band took over the stage getting in a high mood almost immediately. The audience (consisting of almost 800 metalheads) enthusiastically welcomed the four piece act by jumping up and down and to my surprise singing almost all the chorus lines. Musically NONPOINT offered absolutely nothing to me since I find hard to sink my teeth on songs without guitar solos and not a specific melody. Witness, Bullet With A Name and March Of War spread enthusiasm to the U.S. audience that responded my forming a large mosh pit. Allow me here to mark some differences between the European and the U.S. metal audiences; 1. in U.S. long hair is something really rare among the metalheads, 2. mosh pit is like some guys pushing each other to the point of falling down, 3. security help the guys doing their stuff and watching them out and 4. to my surprise and joy things here are really violent.
NONPOINT manage to impress me with their GENESIS cover version of In The Air Tonight that is also featured in the OST of the movie Miami Vice. So, after half an hour NONPOINT left the stage and the audience happy and kind of sweaty.
The stage was quickly prepared for the band that I missed in Greece, MACHINE HEAD. The band entered with Clenching The Fists Of Dissent proving that the rough years before the Through The Ashes Of Empires album will never return. The sound was loud and crystal clear spreading waves of power all over the club. Imperium was next without stop and things were already on fire; Robb Flynn said that this was the band's first time in Mokena and that he was really happy doing so, just before Aesthetics Of Hate kicked in! MACHINE HEAD is an excellent Thrash Metal band that is more than excellent to watch on stage; the guys seem to enjoy every minute and give 100%. Old was a classic while my personal favorite Halo was one of the concert's highlight. Robb made a connection with the crowd with his honest presence and his relentless performance. The rest of the band shared the same mood presenting a solid setlist that unfortunately came into an end after 70 minutes with the neck snapping Davidian.
Honestly, I could have left the venue after MACHINE HEAD since HELLYEAH's debut album was nothing special; but I stayed because it has been a long time since my last Metal concert. So after 30 minutes HELLYEAH were on stage with an even louder but impressively clear sound performing the headbanger Matter Of Time. The first word that came into my mind was whoa! the band was really solid while Chad Gray (MUDVAYNE) was doing a hell of a job on the vocals with distinct Anselmo influences. The audience became even more enthusiastic with the band from Dallas, Texas that flawlessly performed the entire debut album. One thing that I found annoying was Chad's long and useless talks during the breaks that in some point were messing the whole atmosphere. Of course, he made a long speech before the very good song Thank You explaining and more that it is dedicated to the U.S. troops who are fighting for freedom. He also said that HELLYEAH would not play PANTERA and DAMAGEPLAN songs since they wanted to count on their works that seemed pretty fair to me. The only cover song that they did was on QUEEN's Stone Cold Crazy under the altered title Stone Cold Wasted; this version comprised the Southern Heaviness and groove and made everyone to sing. Waging War and Rotten To The Core added some more power to their setlist while the concert ended with the headbanger Hellyeah.
To sum things up it was an excellent night with the good for the their genre NONPOINT, the Thrash beasts MACHINE HEAD and the surprise (for me at least) that came from HELLYEAH. Hey, at least my neck was warm after the show!
