by Showbox Market
Spoken, Danko Jones, Volbeat
March 22nd, 2013
The doors were set to open at 7pm, I arrived at the Showbox around 6:15pm to do an interview, and even then there was a line around the corner. While it was damn near freezing outside and I’m sure most of those fans had to deal with the same parking hassle I did, everyone was so pumped you could feel the energy emitting from the crowd. Once inside the energy only seemed to rise. The house was packed.
When the house lights went out and Spoken took the stage they were met with cheers from the full house. They proceeded to launch in to a great high energy set of heavy hitting tunes with a balanced mix of guttural screams, melodic vocals and shredding guitars. By the second song singer Matt Baird was off the stage and climbing on the barricade getting as close to the crowd as he could without being in it. When he brought out a copy of their latest album Illusion and offered it to “the biggest Volbeat fan” in the house the crowd went nuts.
Next up Danko Jones! Somehow the crowd got even more excited, to the point that from my position in the photo pit I could feel the floorboards bending from the force of the mosh pit behind me. Danko Jones delivered another high energy ass kicking set. A few songs in Danko stopped to talk to the crowd about how they are “one of those bands that likes to sing about fucking…” after dropping multiple F-bombs Danko spotted the kid in the audience and immediately, somewhat jokingly apologized not realizing it was “a family show”.
Finally the time came for Volbeat. As you can imagine the energy level at this point is through the roof. Had I not known better I would have thought we were experiencing an earthquake. Volbeat was fucking awesome! They ripped through tons of their original material including some new tracks off of their upcoming album Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies (due out April 9th, 2013). They also threw in some outstanding covers of Johnny Cash and brought Danko Jones back to the stage for the Misfits “Angel Fuck”, as well as a medley of Slayer, Judas Priest and Motorhead . Which lead singer Michael Poulsen sang with his spot on Lemmy impression.
It was a fucking amazing show. In the interest of full disclosure I’d only seen Volbeat once before and had never seen or heard of the supporting bands, Spoken and Danko Jones, but the level of excitement from the crowd was contagious and I was quickly infected with it. Now I’m hooked and I have a few new bands to add to my MP3 player.
Dani Winder – Hardrock Graphics
