MYTH in MAPLEWOOD, MN
FEB 9, 2018
When you live in Minnesota, you don’t care if it’s in the single digits. It’s Friday night, it’s not snowing. Let’s go out and see a rock show!
Friday night brought the extremely well built touring package of BLACK LABEL SOOCIETY, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY and RED FANG to the Myth in Maplewood, MN. Let’s call it what it is. Riffs, Riffs and More Riffs!
RED FANG kicked things off with the members of the band shaking each other’s hands and then treating the mostly full crowd to a very tight 8 song set. You know you’re going to have a great night when they kick off their 35 mins with “Blood Like Cream”! Red Fang is a perfect opener for this tour, if you are a fan of either COC or BLS, you’re gonna dig what they are doing up there. I was happy to see midway thru Red Fang’s set, we now have a capacity crowd who’s clearly enjoying what they are hearing. Ending with the crowd pleasing “Prehistoric Dog” if the crowd didn’t know them before, they are fans now!
As the lights went out for CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, the crowd was chanting “Pepper!” and erupted when he finally came out. The band jammed on the instrumental “Bottom Feeder” before launching into “The Luddite”, the only new song from their new album No Cross No Crown to make their 50 min set. This clearly seemed to be a crowd pleasing greatest hits set with huge cheers for “Seven Days”, “Vote with a Bullet” and “Long Whip/Big America” and sing-a-longs happening for “Who’s Got the Fire” and “Albatross”.
My only complaint for the night comes from the 45 min set change between COC and BLS. 45 mins is an extremely long time to make a rowdy crowd wait. That crowd went into a frenzy when the curtain dropped and we all witnessed the light shining on Zakk Wylde hair whipping around riffing like many of us could only dream of.
When trying to write this review, what can you say about Zakk and BLS that hasn’t been said already. There’s no one quite like Zakk Wylde. When you buy a ticket to the show, he’s giving you exactly what you want. Jaw dropping riffage (those guitar solos!!) and a beyond tight rhythm section. With the exception of Motorhead, I’m not sure there’s another band that’s as loud as Black Label.
While most bands are keeping a minimalist approach and relying on video screens on stage lately, BLS always has the Wall of Amplifiers on stage, with Zakk’s own Wylde Audio Amplifiers shining loud and proud up there. It’s really a thing of beauty.
The setlist was completely different from when I last saw them on the “Catacombs” touring cycle. This was a setlist for the die hard, long time BLS fan. Equal parts of 1919 Eternal, The Blessed Hellride, Mafia and Grimmest Hits were represented in the set but where was the Order of the Black material?! I was extremely impressed with the choices of new songs in the set with the fantastic “Trampled Down Below” showing up midset followed closely the equally heavy and melodic crowd sing-a-long of the current single “Room of Nightmares”.
When you have a deeply respected catalogue like BLS has … you can’t please all the fans. But at the same time, you are still pleasing all the fans. As long as there’s guitar pyrotechnics and “Stillborn” ends it, I’m not sure it matters what the set list is. The capacity crowd witnessed a feast for the eyes, ears and metal soul and got some sweet new merch to go with it.
CHECK OUT ZIS' PICTURES OF RED FANG AND CORROSION OF CONFIRMITY HERE!
CHECK OUT ZIS' PICTURES OF BLACK LABEL SOCIETY HERE!
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