Saw Lamb of God and Mastodon last night.

[greatmutah]

I apologize but I didn’t really take any pics. Was busy enjoying the shows. Arrived in the metal of Kerry King’s solo set. Band is fucking solid live. Paul Bostaph is still a machine. Kerry does the Kerry thing. Dude from Death Angel is a great fit for this band and I’m a big Phil Demmel fan so seeing him playing on this is a treat. They also covered Raining Blood and Black Magic. Fun set. Would see again. If you’ve missed having Slayer in your life, see them. It’s not far removed at all.

Mastodon played Leviathan in its entirety. Which is great for me because I only know that album from them. Set was good though. They sounded awesome. Bill was rocking his ESPs and his Silverburst Les Paul Custom and Explorer. Brent had his Vs and some cool SGs with V Headstocks. One SG had a carve top and the pickup layout was spaced like a Les Paul. Had top binding, blocks, black beauty finishing and the V headstock. Bigsby too. Looked sexy. Brann doesn’t look like he’s aged in 20 years. Little bit of nostalgia there as the last time I saw them live was roughly 20 years ago when my old band opened for them at Harpos. We were local support and sold tickets to play that one. Turnout wasn’t great for that one so I’m glad that show wasn’t an indicator for their career as a whole.

LoG of course was LoG. Ashes of the Wake was played in its entirety and two songs from Sacrament were thrown on to end it. This is the first time I’ve seen them with Art Cruz behind the kit. Dude is a monster live and definitely does justice to the older tunes Chris played on. Couldn’t see amps but the tones sounded like Mraks. Will Adler doesn’t get enough credit as a riff machine in that band. And Mark Morton played Les Pauls all night. Some highlights of that set for me: the 1, 2, 3 punch of Laid to Rest, Hourglass and Now You’ve Got Something to Die For is such a killer album opener and live opener. Being that they did the whole album we got Break You and Remorse is For the Dead, two of my other favorite songs off that album. All in all, great set from these guys.

So yeah. Great show. If you’re thinking about going, go. It’s a good time.

[linthat22]

I finally decided to dive into Mastodon and that entire band is killer!