This adventure -so to speak- was my first road trip for a concert in fricking forever. Actually I don't think I have made a road trip for a metal show since the SYMPHONY X tour that was either this last summer or the one before. With all the nothingness around us while driving through Missouri we thought for sure we would make a wrong turn and end up at a Texas Chainsaw Massacre house or something.
I gotta say that is one of the nicer venues that I have ever been to very nice and clean. There was a even a separate area just for people wanting to watch TV and drink rather then watch a band. Which brings me to my first point; I was going into the show pretty much only to see CYNIC, so I was in the side area waiting for THE FACELESS to be done. About 10 minutes went by and I decided since I had drove 4 hours might as well at least check them out; I gotta say if they lose the singer or if he adds more variation to this scream they would be pretty good. The pure instrumentation in certain parts of certain songs was like, WHOA!, but about a quarter of each song that I watched contained too much Death and not enough in cooperation of other elements of Metal. In case you aren't familiar with them they definitely have a technical prowless to them comparable maybe to DECAPITATED.
I picked out a good spot with a view to watch the stage so I could fully enjoy my first experience with CYNIC and watch every finger movement that they make. All I need to say really is that they were flawless. I am not as familiar with Focus as I am with Traced In Air, but from what I could they played 3 songs from the former and 4 songs from the latter. Hearing Evolutionary Sleeper and Traced In Air live were whole other experiences; everything was perfect from the sound, to their presence, and the energy in the room. A few surprises from them were that Veil of Maya wasn't the closer and the fact that CYNIC's drummer was pushed so far to the side from MESHUGGAH's kit that you could barely see him.
Now the headliner; I wasn't exactly sure how their sound would translate from record to live. Now I had seen them once before, but it was in a big arena opening for TOOL and I wasn't even thinking about MESHUGGAH. We only stayed for 4 songs and then left. While I do enjoy their music, live it just didn't do much for me. The nature of their music kind of start, stop, start, stop and kinda choppy, which doesn't allow them to move much. I also just didn't think that their sound came out the best. Oh well, maybe next time they will strike the right chord with me.
