### Fear Factory, Suffocation, Hypocrisy, Decapitated, 2006-02-11

#### 23/12/06 || Global Domination

This review was written by ex-staffer/cocksmoker Farlus.

The fact that this show contained such polar opposites as Decapitated and Fear Factory should have led me to shy away from attending, but I hadn’t seen a show in probably 6 months and this was the closest thing I was going to get to a good metal show, so to New Orleans I drove.

When I arrived, the makings of a disaster were already in place. You see, the House of Blues in New Orleans has two venues. There is the main hall for the primary acts, and then “The Parish”, which is an extension of the main hall. It’s an above-average sized room with two bars that smaller acts play in. Well, on this night, the Parish was host to some crappy emo mallcore band, with teenage fans praising them up and down like they were the best thing since jerking off (and most of these guys were still shooting blanks). So while waiting at will call to get my tickets, several fights started up between metal fan and non-metal fan (and I was part of a couple). Fuck those douchebags.

Anyway, tickets in tow, I proceeded into the concert hall at approximately 6:55. The show was slated for a 7 PM start. 7:15 rolled around… no show. 7:30… 7:45… you get the picture. At approximately 8:30, the show finally starts… with Hypocrisy? Apparently, no Decapitated. The ONE fucking band I couldn’t have done without is a no show. Better yet, the second best band is now opening with a shortened set (3 songs). So I paid $25 to see Hypocrisy play 3 songs and Decapitated play none. Great start.

Hypocrisy quickly took the stage and kicked some ass, but they didn’t have much chance to get the crowd worked properly. This kind of set the tone for the evening, as everyone was already disgruntled, then they get a sloppily-put together opening act. For the rest of the night, the crowd never really got into the show. Despite all this, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Hypocrisy. They are a killer band, I just wish they had more time to play.

So, after already waiting an hour and a half to witness three songs, we were treated to a second wait period of another half an hour while Suffocation set their shit up. Honestly, I wish I had taken a dump during this portion of the evening. I can enjoy some Suffocation every now and again, but everything the band creates on record is just lost in a live setting. The singer is a jock douchebag. The whole show he said shit like “This song is about fucking a dead body after you kill some pregnant mom and then eat the dead fetus”. Then while he was grunting, he would do this stupid hand-shake thing. I could barely get into their set because for one, I was laughing so hard at the dumbass singer. Two, every time they would start to groove and I’d start to get into it, their odd timing changes would kick in and I’d get thrown off. So, I just fazed out and watched the comedy in the pit. There was this big guy in there just kinda pushing people around for the first hour or so of the show. This little guy just kept fighting him and getting his ass kicked. Finally, some big(ger) guy in the crowd got fed up and kicked the formerly-big guy’s ass. Ah, teenage angst.

Finally, after the sucktitude of Suffocation, Fear Factory took the stage. Who would have thought in this lineup that Fear Factory would be the redeeming factor? This was the second time I had seen the band live, and they freakin’ blew me away from the get-go. Why? They started the set off with FIVE (5) songs from “Soul of a New Machine”. The first two songs? “Martyr” and “Crash Test”. I banged my wee little metal head off. They then nailed the usual suspects, including “Hunter-Killer” from “Demanufacture”, another phenomenal song. “Shock”, “Edgecrusher”, “Linchpin”, “Slave Labor”, and “Cyberwaste” were played, then some song from their last album that I didn’t bother listening to. The obligatory, anti-climatic “Replica” wrapped up a pretty good set.

Overall, I’d say the show was a pretty big letdown, especially since I hadn’t seen a live show since Opeth rolled through in March. Still, in a life that used to see live shows every other week and now is lucky to see them every six months, it was good to get a little nostalgia back in and remind myself that the metal dream lives on, even if I can’t stay with it as often.

This show gets 6 horns out of 10.