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Beats Reborn Boardwalk After spending a year away from the scene searching for a new vocalist, Sacramento’s favorite glow in the dark metal band, The Beat Officers finally made their return. This show would also mark Luxt side project, Blownload, playing only their second home town date. As well as one of Syphon’s first shows with new material, a new singer and new band name: Colma.
First up, the all girl rock band Aroarah hit the stage. Despite their relatively young ages—all being under 21—the group instantly showed off their excellent song crafting abilities and tightness as a band by song one. Drummer Mackenzie Knoester employed a good array of beats and well thought out drum fills with excellent timing and consistent meter throughout. Bassist Chelsea Baker mostly stuck to simple, but effective bass lines. Guitarist Morgan Knoester did back ups consisting entirely of Kittie-esqu screams that contrasted sharply to the more pop style of lead vocalist Lydia Gavin. With all the pieces put together, it seemed unclear if Aroarah was a pop band or a hard rock band. Either way, the crowd on hand didn’t seem to care as long as the band kept playing. After a great ten song set, the band thanked the crowd and left the stage.
Next up was Colma. What’s that, you might ask? Colma was originally the name of the vast cemeteries that bordered the city of San Francisco due to property values in the city getting too high to be used as grave yards. Colma has since become a small populated city among the many burial sites, but the dead still far out number the living. The band formally known as Syphon played on this theme, by dimming the lights, filling the stage with fog, and playing a long gothic sample that lasted for several minutes. As the sample played, the members of Colma snuck on to the unlit stage. As soon as the sample ended, the lights went up and the band tore into their first song Wicked Man. New frontman Jim Atkinson went from a Stone Temple Pilots kind of sound to a deep growl that ushered in the band’s new much heavier musical direction. Next, the band played the song Cutting Wall that features lots of heavy tom work by drummer Joel Slusser before leading into the aptly named song Pound—a song that simply thumps thanks to bassist Steve Seidel and inspired the first mosh pit of the night. Guitarist Randy Valdez gave a simple, but tastefully done wah solo in closing song The Grip ending a great set of all new material.
Blownload features all of the male members of popular Sacramento band Luxt. Both bands have “L”s in their names. But that’s where the similarities end. The band used no samples, no stage lights, no electronics, just pure raw energy as their weapon. Relatively new drummer to the family, Reed, and the highly charismatic and entertaining bassist Crash completed the band’s solid rhythm section. Guitarist David H blended in mostly with the rhythm section for much of the set giving the incredibly diverse vocalist Erie Loch room to work. Erie went from a low raspy growl that really filled out their sound then switched to a higher pitched female vocal sound that was just plain eerie and fascinating to witness. The band started off with slow, creeping intro of Screams Like Old Times and moved to Fuck Pig. At which point, Crash drew a circle in the air which immediately got the pit going. Forth in the set was the song 1-800 Fag Bash which goes from energetic to ballady—giving the audience a chance to better make out the clever and humorous lyric writing ability of frontman Erie. Crowd favorite song Daughter came next, then the even heavier song Perv, raising the energy level even more as evident by the more and more aggressive mosh pit. The punk beat laden song Mother Fucker ended the set, leaving quite a few Luxt fans impressed with the job Erie could do handling all vocal duties on his own.
House lights went off and black lights went on as headliner of the night, The Beat Officers took the stage. Armed with former EMB singer, Bad Mouth, the band opened with their song Life Styles just to give the long time Beat Officer fans in attendance a taste of the old material. Once the crowd was thoroughly warmed up, the band moved on with the brand new stuff starting with the guitar chunky song Push with the dream like lead from guitarist Jesus. Third song of the set Reality, started with some scratching laid down by DJ Fedi. What no doubt will one day be a big song for the Beat’s, forth song in the set, the catchy radio ready metal song, Never Again. The crowd seemed to really get into the new material, but just in case, Fedi came out from behind his turntables to sing hard driving, fan favorite song Dead Inside. The band went on playing five more songs of new material, closing with Riot Anthem. By the end of the set, Beat Officers fans were definitely happy to see their favorite band alive and well. |
