Throwdown Tour Review

Throwdown Winter Tour 2006
Review

Throwdown Winter Tour 2006
Throwdown
The Red Chord
The Agony Scene
2/23/06
Metro
Reviewer: Karma E. Omowale
Photos: Erika Kristen Watt

“The Gods of Bedlam Lay Claim To Another Tour”

No tour seems to go without a hitch these days as the Throwdown / Black Dahlia Murder Winter Tour 2006 was no exception to this rule. By the time this tour rolled through Chicago, complete and utter turmoil respectively surrounded the drummers of Black Dahlia Murder and The Red Chord. BDM was not able to perform due to some unforeseen issues with getting their new drummer, Maple Leaf resident, Pierre Langois into the States. The Red Chord’s frontman Guy Kozowyk sheds light on this muck…click here. TRC themselves also fell prey to the gods of chaos as their longtime drummer Brad Fickeisen split with the band shortly before this tour began. In the meantime, to fill in on the skins is one Kevin Talley, as in recently departed ex-Chimaira drummer. Chimaira decided to part ways with Kevin in order to reinstate Jim Andols. Can you say jacked up? And speaking of trooperdom, we later found out that Mike McKenzie, guitarist of TRC, performed with pneumonia. Can you say dedication?

It had been a minute since we had last seen The Agony Scene (Blackest of the Black Tour) to be exact. We were fully aware going into this gig that guitarist Steven Kaye parted ways with the band a little while ago, however what had come as a shock to us was to see ex-bassist now guitarist Brian Hodges with a six string strapped on full-time with newcomer Brian Stewart taking over on bass. Again, this tour was full of surprises! Overall, tonight’s show was a good one, amid all of the nervous energy that followed the bands (wonder why); The Red Chord definitely stole the show! Here’s how this evening’s events broke down:

Lineup: Mike Williams – vocals; Brent Masters – drums; Chris Emmons – guitar; Brian Hodges – guitar; Brian Stewart – bass

Oklahoma’s The Agony Scene came out to “Prelude” the instrumental piping through the PA, as the band was ready to kick all sorts of ass! Vocalist Mike Williams addressed the crowd right off the bat, “Wassup Chicago? We’re Agony Scene! Let’s have a good fucking time; let’s see those horns!” The band immediately ripped into “Lines of Suicide”; the crowd was into the band from the start, which is always nice to see. However, it was a shame the venue had not filled up close to half-capacity at this point.

Williams made a mosh call during the second song, “Scars of Your Disease”, the crowd remained immobile nevertheless the energy from the meager crowd was amazing as well as that from the band; they fed off one another! At the conclusion of the song, Williams addressed the hyperactive crowd, “Thank you very much! It’s good to be back in Chicago. How many of you saw us back in October on the Blackest of the Black Tour?”, some members in the audience roared. Williams thanked those who had returned to see them and proceeded to intro the next song by screaming the title “The Darkest Red” to the top of his lungs. The exuberant audience sang along happily showing out to those that didn’t know…the elitism was a bolt from the blue! Hopefully this horrendous trend will not continue. However, a pit did erupt on this song. The band was stoked to finally see a pit. At the conclusion of the song, an out of breath Williams said, “Chicago, you’ve been a great crowd! This is our last song, “We Bury Our Dead At Dawn”!” The crowd roared for the band. Williams thanked the crowd again to wrap up their short set. It was amazing! A great warm-up for Boston’s The Red Chord!!

The Agony Scene Setlist: Lines of Suicide; Scars of Your Disease; The Darkest Red; Suffer; Eyes Sewn Shut; Scapegoat; We Bury Our Dead at Dawn.

Lineup: Guy Kozowyk – vocals; Mike McKenzie (a.k.a. Gunface) – guitars; Jonny Fay – guitars; Gregory Weeks – bass; Kevin Talley – drums

In retrospect, The Red Chord is not the kind of band that requires a warm-up or opening act, this band is perfectly capable of warming the cuckolds of the most frigid of hearts! At least the venue started to fill up prior to the beginning of the band’s set. Guy Kozowyk, the lively frontman, came out the chute in full support of (his label) BlackMarket Activities band brandishing an Ed Gein t-shirt. Kozowyk began jumping up and down readying himself for battle, he screamed into the mic with his best death metal voice, “We’re The Red Chord from Boston…let’s move this shit around!” The band ripped into “Nihilist” as the obedient crowd was more than happy to comply with their direct orders from Kozowyk! A pit from hell opened up as bouncers had the time of their lives stuffing surfers back into the crowd.

The audience got their horns up high during the intro for “Black Santa” as the band tore into the song without an upwards glance. During the break of the song, Guy screamed at the audience, “Let’s see what you guys got! What’s up Chicago!” The crowd went into hysterics as the middle of floor violently bounced up and down. There was enough energy to heat a Slavic village! Now on to my personal favorite…"How is everybody doing tonight? This is "Lay The Tarp"!” Well we were all better after that song, thanks Guy!! By the way, the band tore this song up! Not to be prejudice, but "Lay The Tarp" should be much longer. On to the next song, as intro to “Clients”, Kozowyk treated us to an amusing interlude, “What do you guys think of smelly mics? You guys wanna smell it?” The grossed out audience screamed nonetheless; the band then ripped into “Clients”, how apropos! After such an amazing rendition of the song, one could only surmise the obvious, how fucking awesome Kevin Talley really is. What is more amazing is the depth he added to the drum parts in such a short amount of prep-time. More than likely, he will not continue with the band but for that small moment in time, it was brutally blissful!

The colorful frontman continued his verbal comedic performance to intro our next selection on tonight’s setlist, “Do you guys want more smoke?” at this point the smoke machines were working overtime. There was more “atmosphere” than in Cradle’s “Ghost in Her Fog” video! He then joked, “We’re having a nice encore moment!” Resuming his need duties of hyping the crowd more, “Chicago, what the FUCK is up? This is the extended version of “Upper Decker”!” The crowd roared with approval. “Are you brutal?” Not overly satisfied with the response, Guy retorted, “I know you pussies can do better than that!” The place erupted! Posing the question again, “Are you ready to get brutal?”, the audience roared. “Who has our old CD? This is from the first CD [Fused Together In Revolving Doors] “This goes out to you, this is “Like a Train Through a Pigeon”!” Again Talley shined along side of his temporary bandmates, bassist Greg Weeks and guitarists Mike McKenzie and Jonny Fay. During the song, Guy shouted, “Chicago, tear it up!” as a pit from hell arose in honor of their munificent leader. Trying to cross the barricade in vein, security earned their money tonight again busily stuffing surfers back into the crowd. When the song concluded, Guy happily nodded as his ever-faithful flock did not let him down by “destroying” the place! In the process, Guy threw the attention on Jonny Fay, as he definitely deserved the spotlight!

Skipping ahead, Kozowyk further entertained the crowd with his anecdotes, “How many metalheads do we have here tonight?”, more than a modest roar replied to the practically rhetoric question. “We have a lot for you still. This is called “Hospice Residence”!” The crowd went berserk. For the next song, “Blue Line Cretin”! From the front to the back, I want to see this floor moving!” For the rest of the set the band was on FIRE! To conclude the night, on the final song, “Dreaming In Dog Years”, Guy asked the frenzied members of the audience if they were “still with him”…hell were they!! At the conclusion of the set, the lively frontman thanked his audience wishing them safe on their travels “Have a fun and safe night”. Isn’t he sweet! Interjecting a sales pitch for their merch, “Check out merch in the front”! Suffice it to say, TRC fried the faces off the audience at the Metro this evening! The Red Chord stole the show hands down! In truth, they all made their set look absolutely effortless. It was downright insane! I have one word for you my dear reader, can you say: OZZFEST XI! I thought you could!! This band is poised to become a household name and to kill every audience they come in contact with, they have an entire summer to do so!

The Red Chord Setlist: Nihilist; Black Santa; Lay The Tarp*; Clients; Upper Decker; Like A Train Through A Pigeon; Fixation on Plastics; Hospice Residence; Blue Line Cretin; Antman; Dreaming in Dog Years.

Lineup: Dave Peters – vocals; Matt Mentley – bass; Ben Dussault – drums; Mark Choiniere – guitars

By the time Californian straightedgers Throwndown took the stage, the crowd had thinned out some. However, frontman Dave Peters gave it his all as well as the rest of the band. Firing up his troops overcoming Peters screamed, “We’re Throwdown! What the fuck Chicago…this is “We Will Rise”!”, and that they did, rising above the lack of dense population of concertgoers. The ones in attendance were all about the band! To intro the next song, Peters checked on the crowd asking, “Chicago, how the fuck are we doing?”, the crowd healthily roared back at the frontman. The band then ripped into the song. At the intro to the third song, Peters addressed the audience, “Tonight I want you to make some noise for The Agony Scene! As you know by now Black Dahlia Murder could not make it tonight. They send their regards!” The crowd rejoiced with screams and horns. The frontman continued, “Make some goddamn noise! Let’s play a fast one. Show me a circle pit and open this motherfucker up, this is “Hopeless”!” It’s so nice of the band to digging into the archives with songs from their 2003 release, Haymaker, of course one can do these things when you headline!

However readers, this is where this review pretty much ends. We had the opportunity to catch up with The Red Chord’s frontman, Guy Kozowyk as we had the burning need to find out more about their drummer situation. Well that question got answered as well as the lowdown on the BDM! However when we returned for the last song, Peters was trying to get the attention of some girlies in the audience and decided to strip down exposing his bare chest, anything to draw the attention back to the front of the stage, right! In closing Peters said, “Regardless, if you are metalhead or into hardcore, we all have to be unified!” Well that’s the spirit Dave! Enjoy the photos…by the way; Throwdown will be back in a couple of months in direct support of In Flames on their second headlining tour of the year in May. Stay tuned for more soon!

Partial Throwdown Setlist: Intro (Never Back Down); We Will Rise; Hopeless; Speak The Truth; Unite; Roots Bloody Roots; Step It Up; Forever.