Regardless, I did arrive in time to check out the real reason I am here – Suffocation. My bias should become clear as I was almost giddy to see the closest thing to the original lineup that has been put together since 1993. As the curtain was drawn, the crowd was greeted by vocalist Frank Mullen pacing across the stage in an almost frantic state. Due to limited space on the stage, guitarists Terrance Hobbs and Guy Marchais were sequestered on their respective sides of the stage, and bassist Derek Boyer, who suffered a broken leg – on of all days, 6/6/06 – was relegated to sitting on the edge of the drum riser for the entire show.

Suffocation started the set with an old favorite, “Infecting the Crypts,” a hit from the 1991 Roadrunner release, “Effigy of the Forgotten.” Ii was obvious that the music did not suit the crowd which was about 90% under 18 and almost entirely clad in Shadows Fall tees and hoodies. What a shame, since Suffocation is one of the true innovators of the musical type these young kids covet. In fact, there would be no place for death metal-type riffs and blast beats mixed with hardcore kind of vocal structure without the boys from the NYC metal underground.

Suffocation included some of their best tunes like “Catatonia,” “Thrones of Blood,” and “Torn into Enthrallment” before getting back to a tune called “Tombs of Acrimony” from their 2004 release called “Soul to Deny.” They did something that gets under my skin a little by saving their new song “Abomination Reborn” for last, but I’ll let it slide since it ended up being the best of their set.

Next up after a short set change, Buffalo, New York’s It Dies Today hit the stage. For me, this is when the Strhess Tour started to go sour in a hurry. I will try to be objective, but I think I am speaking for the majority of the people in attendance when I say: “Who the hell put this tour together and from what school for the deaf did they come?!?” I apologize to the hearing-impaired, but even they wouldn’t pair these clearly emo guys with Shadows Fall and Suffocation. I would list some of the songs they played, but every single one was identical to the next and I just couldn’t figure out where one stopped and another started – and I haven’t even mentioned the sound! UHHH! It was choreographed for god’s sake! I thought I was watching A.F.I. or Fall Out Boy in the middle of a metal concert. That’s all I’m saying about that.

In an effort to collect myself before the next set, I decided I was in dire need of beer. When I returned, it was time for Poison the Well, a Florida based self-proclaimed metacore band currently on Atlantic records with their third full-length album “You Come Before You” released back in 2003. This set started out OK, but burst into a fiery disaster within the time it took to perform one song. The sound was awful, and I don’t blame it entirely on the band. It was also the house sound that was off, but one of P.T.W’s guitar players stopped mid-song to try to tune his guitar! As if that wasn’t bad enough, they tried to pull off the dreaded “we can control our distortion and use it as part of the song” routine that has been the undoing of many of the young and under-trained musicians. And again they jumped head-first into the emo/punk rock/hardcore confusion that is permeating new American music. I find it upsetting that it’s so common to think that all you have to do is shout and you’re metal.

Back to the bar again, thinking about getting more soup but realizing my commitment to report the good with the bad overcame my longing to write off the entire show. Shadows Fall came out around 9:00 PM to a crowd that was in need of something real to get this show and our evening back on track. Yet when they started playing, it was looking bad for the fulfillment of that hope. The stage setup was great and it was now clear why the previous bands were so crapped, as the Shadows’ backdrop was very large. Blue spotlights shot all around the House of Blues, a cool air raid-type cammo could be heard over the speaker towers along with the sound of drums to make you feel as though you were catching a show at the USO, circa Vietnam. The problem wasn’t the stage or the performance; it was pure, 100% bad sound which led to the first three songs almost inaudible.

Lead singer Brian Fair was almost completely drowned out by vocalists Jonathon Donais and Matt Bachand, whose guitars were drowned out by the drums, and ultimately, by the bass of Paul Romanko. By the fourth song they had ironed out most of the problems and I could actually make out the opening of “In Effigy” from the new album released earlier this year, “Fallout from the War.” Even through all the technical problems, one thing was clear, these guys know how to play to their audience and the kids in the audience responded by going crazy. I’d wager Brian Fair could have told them all to jump off the roof and they would have – no questions asked. Later in the set, they played “Thoughts Without Words” from their second major album and they closed the show with “Going, Going, Gone” from the new album.

I wish I could say more nice than nasty for this tour, but I guess you can’t win ‘em all. I’ll chalk it up to the young metal fans trying to find their sound and the old metal fans trying to figure out what happened to theirs.

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