Boston was one of the six lucky cities in the U.S. to get a stop of The Dillinger Escape Plan's mini-headline tour before the prolific mathcore act takes a brief break from the road for members Greg Puciato, Ben Weinman and Liam Wilson to pursue their other musical ventures. Unsurprisingly, the band who is widely known in the scene for their high-intensity live shows once again delivered the goods during their show at the Royale last night.
Primitive Weapons, a Brooklyn-based band signed to Weinman's Party Smasher Inc. record label, got things started a little after 8:00. Primitive Weapons played a style of crust punk-infused mathcore that sounded like a watered-down version of Seattle's Trap Them. All of their songs sounded pretty much the same and they lacked the balls-out energy and barrage of quality riffs that makes this style of metal tick. While there could've been far worse openers, Primitive Weapons' set was the epitome of mediocrity.
The vibe in the room changed extremely fast once direct support group Mutoid Man took the stage. I'd never listened to them prior to the show and within the first few notes of opener "Friday the 13/8", I immediately resented myself for not checking out their material beforehand. With the likes of Cave In vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky and Converge drummer Ben Koller in their ranks, the quality of Mutoid Man's music shouldn't have been such a massive surprise to me. Their music is a really interesting hybrid of post-hardcore, stoner rock, mathcore and sludge metal. This unique sound makes perfect use of Brodsky's wide vocal range and allows the band to perfectly execute every single one of their frequent tempo changes. The one common thread between all the sides of their sound was a slew of amazing riffs. Every single song featured at least two or three standout riffs that grabbed my attention and forced me to rock out like an idiot in the middle of the venue. Mutoid Man is without question the most surprisingly great live band I've seen in the past few years and I will be purchasing their new record, Bleeder, as soon as its released on June 30th.
After an approximately 20 minute changeover, Dillinger Escape Plan hit the stage and proceeded to blow the fucking roof off of the place. Like the previous five times I've seen them, Dillinger destroyed everything in their wake for the 70 minutes they were on stage. Where this show differed from the previous times I'd seen them was the set's focus on material from 2004's Miss Machine. If there's one knock on Dillinger's live show its their tendency to play a nearly identical setlist on every tour they do, so it was awesome to see them mix it up and play a lot of material (including a number of rarities that have only been played a handful of times before this tour) from their breakout album. All of the Miss Machine material sounded fantastic, but was it was especially great to see some of my absolute favorite Dillinger songs like "Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants", "Unretrofied" and "Baby's First Coffin". After seeing Dillinger flat-out ignore Miss Machine outside of "Panasonic Youth" and "Sunshine the Werewolf" every time I'd seen them previously, the idea of hearing other material from the record seemed highly improbable. Hell, it's been about 16 hours since the show ended and I'm still in disbelief that I saw them play five rare songs from Miss Machine during the same set. Hopefully they'll continue to mix their sets up like this more in the future because it was a genuine treat to see them play this material live. The non-Miss Machine material was equally great with staples like "Milk Lizard", "43% Burnt" and "Farewell, Mona Lisa" killing as always. Dillinger ended the evening with one last surprise, breaking out "Good Neighbor" from 2010's Option Paralysis for the first time on this tour. While Dillinger was slightly less bat-shit insane on stage than usual, this was easily the most musically-sound, fun and well-rounded performance I've ever seen them give.
Side Notes:
-Ben Koller is one of the most criminally underrated drummers on the planet.
-Some dude got on stage after "Baby's First Coffin" and proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes.
-Watching a handful of drunken metalheads hug the newly engaged couple afterwards was hilarious.
-The "Sunshine of Your Love" intro to "Sunshine the Werewolf" was surprisingly badass.
Scores:
Primitive Weapons 5/10
Mutoid Man 8.5/10
The Dillinger Escape Plan 9.5/10
Setlists:
Mutoid Man (taken from setlist.fm):
Friday the 13/8
Sacriledge
Sweet Ivy
1000 Mile Stare
Bridgeburner
Reptilian Soul
Scrape the Walls
Lost in the Hive
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Nina Simone cover)
Beast
Dead Dreams
Scavengers
Gnarcissist
The Dillinger Escape Plan:
Prancer
Milk Lizard
Happiness is a Smile
One of Us is the Killer
Farewell, Mona Lisa
When I Lost My Bet
We are the Storm
Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants
Panasonic Youth
Highway Robbery
Unretrofied
Baby's First Coffin
Sunshine the Werewolf (with the first verse of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" as an intro)
43% Burnt
Encore:
The Mullet Burden
Good Neighbor
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