STATIC-X / OTEP / INVITRO / FADED EMBRACE
Forest Hills Lodge, Machesney Park, IL - 5/22/07
by Dr. Mality
The last time I saw Static-X at the Lodge, it was an experience I’d rather forget. Not in terms of the band’s performance, but more due to the fact that I locked my keys in my (running) automobile, I got stuck with an extra parking charge and it was hotter than August in the Sudan inside the club. Well, this time I managed to avoid the parking charge and keep my keys with me, but it was still like an Indian sweat lodge inside of Ye Olde Forest Hills. Fortunately, Static-X was even better than last time so I’m a little less grumpy and a lot more objective.
You can almost count on Faded Embrace opening every metal show in the area. These guys are in the same position that Man Made Man was in about 3 or 4 years ago: in danger of getting themselves “played out” in the Stateline. They’ll be opening for God Forbid, Nile and Sikfuk in the next few months, so get ready for plenty of Faded Embrace. They performed as well and as charged up as always, but familiarity breeds, if not contempt, then reduced anticipation. Their new songs sounded good and they should have a full length out this summer, which I am looking forward to. They’d do well to maybe lay off opening for every band that comes through, unless they want to get “Man Made Man” syndrome.
Man, I have hardly any clue what to write about Invitro. Half of the crowd was really into them and the rest couldn’t wait for them to leave the stage. I felt both ways. I will say that that I wish Full Blown Chaos would have made the show as planned, because that would have been a severe beatdown. Instead, we got these crazy fuckers, who included ex-members of Soulfly and Snot. I was expecting either metalcore or standard “jumpdafuckup” metal and got neither one.
Using the theme music to the ORIGINAL “Battlestar Galactica” as their intro was inspired. Then the band hit the stage wearing tin foil headgear and white doctor’s uniforms. Is originality dead, I wondered at first glance? Another stupid low-rent Slipknot clone band with cut-rate masks? About two songs into Invitro’s manic set, I suddenly realized, this was all a spoof. It was a SATIRE of those kinds of bands! They then removed all the tinfoil and uniforms and played the rest of the set looking relatively normal. Their music, though, was anything but. You talk about exhausting, this was it. These guys were fast, fast, FAST and crazy, crazy, CRAZY! Think of a hornless Mr. Bungle meeting the most berserk Dillinger Escape Plan or maybe Dog Fashion Disco colliding with super-charged Cradle of Filth. The drummer was plain fucking NUTS!An insane barrage of rampaging jazz-beats. And the singer? Cackling, squealing, shrieking or sounding like a lounge lizard...that covers him pretty well. But he definitely knew what he was doing up there and didn’t particularly care if anybody understood it or not.
The band definitely knows how to play and they crawled all over the stage with hyperdrive intensity. Quite frankly, it was too much for me. Only thing I can really compare them to is Montreal ’s Unexpect but not as jazzy. It just wears you out, trying to comprehend and grab onto this metal cabaret music. And I think it wore most of the crowd out, too. Even enthusiastic fans were ready for the band’s set to end.
After the set, the band came out into the crowd to personally talk to a guy who was confined to a wheelchair and suffering from some sort of major affliction. It wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t check out the show and even do a little headbanging along with the music. I thought that was a total class act from Invitro and I would hope that maybe Otep and Static-X would follow their example.
Otep is the kind of band that works better for me live than on record. I am not a fan, to put it plainly. But little Ms. Otep loves her theater and she gives it everything she’s got in the live environment, changing headgear like Madonna changes outfits. Devil horns, combat caps, Muslim veils, and even a pilot’s helmet with flaps...she pretty much wore it all during the performance. There’s something primal about the super low tuned bass, the tribal drumming and squealing guitar that turns the crowd into moshing beasts. Even Otep’s poetry, always the most pretentious part of her recorded output, comes across with force live. She’s also got one of the most beastly growls you’ve ever heard from a female body.
Tonight Otep really got into a running battle with a heckler in the crowd. Her strong views naturally make for some vocal opponents but she didn’t back off the offender, yelling “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me...yeah, that’s what your mother did, that’s why she left your dad!”, which got a response from the crowd. Otep is not real fond of boys, in case ya didn’t know. The biggest response she got was when she asked President Bush, “you rotten motherfucker”, to resign or be impeached. To which I can only reply, you go, girl!
An interesting, as always, set from Otep and you can read Kat’s interview with bassist Evil J right here at Wormwood.
If the crowd here tonight is any indicator, it looks like Static-X will escape the purge of bands that came up in the nu-metal surge of the late 90’s. And very rightfully so. They have a strong understanding of how to merge truly heavy metal with powerful rhythms which helps them rise above the pack. There’s something about this approach that they are locked into more than any other band. Their new CD “Cannibal” seems to be doing pretty well and it returns them to the intensity of “Wisconsin Death Trip”, their brilliant breakout CD that remains one of the monoliths of cyber-metal.
Starting off with the title track to “Cannibal”, the dudes had the crowd heaving and pulverizing each other from the onset. AWE-INSPIRING sound from the legendary Johnny B...every band should sound this good live. The guitars were hella thick and bass/drum interplay was capable of jump-starting tectonic plate movement. Only weak note was Tony’s death grunts, because of a bad vocal mike. I said it before, there’s something about the simple rhythms and choppy guitar riffs mixed with Wayne ’s jabbering vocals that reaches inside and forces you to groove.
The band played with full intensity through some of their most scorching stuff, like “I’m With Stupid” (“so I grabbed my shovel...so I grabbed my shovel”), “Bled for Days” and “Black and White”. Everything from “Cannibal” sounded top notch...”Destroyer” is getting all the airplay, but the track “Chemical Logic” is as annihilating as Static-X can get. The band’s stage personalities all came alive...Wayne with his goofy, almost kabuki-like poses and skyscraper hair, the gruff brutality of burly, bald-headed Tony, the cooler-than-cool guitar heroism of Koichi and Nick’s smiling, happy approach to smacking the drums. These quirks really made the dudes more memorable as a unit.
“100% evil disco”, as Wayne would say. Don’t let that scare you off...Static-X is one of the best live bands out there right now and metalheads who stick their nose up in the air thinking they are nu-metal or “too hip” are really missing out.
One of the best parts of the night was running back across Highway 173 and finding out my car hadn’t been towed! This evening sure made up for the previous debacle I had at Forest Hills Lodge. I’ll be back for Nile for sure and hopefully God Forbid as well.
You can view all the pictures here