I went on up and saw the Dethklok and Mastodon co-headline tour when it visited the House of Blues in Dallas, Texas on November 11th. The HoB hosted some viciously awesome metal that night, as Metalocalypse's Dethklok and Georgia's Mastodon packed the venue to the rafters with jacked-up metalheads. Throw in a couple of underground metal bands like High on Fire and Converge as your openers and you've got a metal tour that literally kicks the crap out of anything else this season, probably this year.
Unfortunately for a large number of the tour’s fans (but no problem for myself), the show started at the unholy crack of dawn: 6:30 p.m. (which, for all intents and purposes, may as well have been 6:30 a.m. for these people), meaning most of the sold-out crowd weren’t even there yet, missing out on both High on Fire’s and Converge’s sets. The unknown High on Fire were a surprise hit, impressing everyone who arrived early enough to hear them, including myself, and really setting the overall tone. I see great things in their future. But I’ll tell you now, the yet-to-arrive crowd didn't miss anything by not seeing Converge. This overpopulated band of kids, practically, is heavy metal by the numbers. Nothing special. I have my suspicions that a quick search of their tour bus may even reveal several copies of “Heavy Metal for Dummies.”
By the time progressive sludge metal rockers Mastodon took the stage, however, the HoB was freakin’ packed to the gills. While the majority of the (mostly) younger crowd, including myself, was probably there to see Dethklok, every older, mainstream metal fan in the country, it seems, were getting ready to see one of the bands that they utterly worshiped. The band that, for many of them, introduced them to the world of heavy metal and changed their lives forever. It was extremely apparent that many of them would have kicked their very best friend right in the junk just for a chance to see Masto-effing-don live. …I hope they weren’t disappointed.
For better or worse, the band's entire set was more slow and ponderous than brutal. Most of the songs played were off their newest album, Crack the Skye, and sounded better on CD than live, although that may have had something to with the sound system, which featured the drums and a whole lot of indistinguishable fuzz. This entire portion of Mastodon's show was hard to get into live (although the heavy weed smell meant that some people were trying!) I don't recall Mastodon ever even saying anything to the audience, either. Maybe they thought they were alone? Towards the end of the set, when they reverted back to some of their earlier material, the sound improved but the frequent and unexpected shifts in timing took most of the crowd out of any kind of metal groove. After seeing Mastodon live, there might actually be such a thing as being too progressive.
While the band had no stage show whatsoever, they did spruce up the visual show (touring with Dethklok, I guess you pretty much have to), spending most of the show playing in front of a weird, extremely confusing and repetitive silent movie-esque “Rasputin Goes to Hell and Slays the Devil” storyline of some sort, and later playing in front of their totally mentally disturbed backdrops that were the cover art to their previous albums: the three-headed beast from the cover of Blood Mountain, the massive white whale attacking a ship in icy waters from the cover of Leviathan, and the exploding horse from their first album cover, Remission. Much like the following band, whose purpose is to blend unnoticeably into the foreground and provide musical accompaniment for the surreal visuals on the projection screen behind them, Mastodon seemed content to do the same.
Finally, at the decidedly non-metal time of 10 p.m. sharp (say what you will about HoB, but they get their bands to start and end on time. When dealing with metal bands, you have no idea how impressive that is), Dethklok took the stage. For those of you wondering how a cartoon band could "take the stage," Dethklok's solution was ingenious: Have the real band play almost invisibly in the foreground, while full-length music videos of the television show's songs run on the enormous screen behind them. It's a herculean task requiring impeccable timing and musicianship, but Dethklok was up for the challenge.
The actual band centers around Metalocolypse's creator/writer/director/songwriter/voice actor Brendon Small and a motley cast of elite metal mercenaries, including wizened metal drummer Gene Hoglan, former Zappa guitarist Mike Keneally, and bassist Bryan Beller (thanks, Wikipedia!). Despite playing second-fiddle to the cartoon characters behind them, the band itself actually put on quite a show, asking for no credit and throwing themselves into the show with a surprising amount of stagecraft while never missing a beat. The band played the popular songs with amazing precision and worked the crowd with Dethklok's Queen-inspired brand of hooky thrash metal. Every three or four songs the set was punctuated by a brief intermission where the lights would turn off completely, the band would rush offstage, and a humorous or entertaining video would be played on the big screen, often showing the action backstage with the animated band. The level of workmanship and attention to detail was very apparent and appreciated by the crowd.
It seemed that almost as soon as the set started, however, it was over at 11 p.m. sharp (maybe just in time to let the younger members of the crowd get home in time for their favorite shows on Adult Swim.). But, hey, I'm not faulting the 12 and 13 year old fans in any way. They discovered this band the same way I did. However you get introduced to the beauty and power of heavy metal, whether you grew up listening to bootleg tapes of King Diamond, accidentally heard Quiet Riot on the radio once, or (like me) were turned on to metal by Metallica's Black Album … it's all good.