You’d think that all of the middle-aged, mildly balding, minorly drunk, and majorly-bearded men in Philadelphia would have been at last night’s disappointment of a baseball game. You’d be wrong, as it was this group that mainly filled out the Electric Factory’s presentation of Adult Swim’s Dethklok/Mastodon tour. One of the best collectives around for people-watching, the “middle-aged metalheads” (from here on MAMs), packed the Factory last night for an evening of shred, leaving little room for us whippersnappers to throw a fist. No issues here, though—like the rings of a tree, the inches of a MAM’s beard are a direct indication of his (or her?) manliness, and half of the show’s intensity came from the multi-generational energy the crowd produced.
What’s that, you say? Heavy metal’s not cool anymore? Why should you care? Plain and simple: Mastodon just fuckin’ slams. Unleashing the fury of their most recent LP Crack the Skye, the Atlanta foursome plowed through the entire record start to finish with the paradoxical reckless abandon and painstaking precision that simply doesn’t exist anymore. Guitarist Brent Hinds killed on the banjo intro of “Divinations,” and the four-strong band bellowed in perfect harmony throughout—particularly slaying on the final minute of “The Last Baron.”
It’s worth noting that Mastodon is a bit stranger than your standard metal band. Take, for example, the story behind Skye. In brief: quadriplegic boy leaves earthly body, flies into space, has an Icarus-like run-in with the sun, travels back in time to Czarist Russia (natch), gets tangled up with a cult called the Khlysty, embodies and teams up Rasputin (double natch), watches as Rasputin becomes a martyr, flies through a wormhole through a crack in the sky, and returns back to his earthly body—entirely healed, thanks to martyRasputin (triple natch). The entire opera plays off nicely in the background, however, such that it can either be enjoyed or more or less ignored (the band even offers an instrumental version). The story was presented through some particularly zany imagery and video behind the band—either that, or Mastodon fancies playing in front of wizardly fellows battling with swords, damsels in some form of distress, and general dungeon scenery (entirely possible).
Admittedly, the second set lost a bit of steam. Though it was great to hear the ‘don hop in the way-back machine as early as 2004’s Remission, none of the encore’s songs packed as much punch of Skye, or even the other cuts on the band’s earlier works. Frankly, it was an encore that didn’t have to happen. The entirety of Crack the Skye was more than enough. Small gripes, though, and I’d be foolish to say no to extra brutality.
Still, I have one more small complaint. At the risk of sounding totally posersauce, going to see Mastodon and not hearing “Blood and Thunder” feels something like watching Misery but fast-forwarding through the hobbling scene. Yeah, I know the band has done other things, and I know that it must get annoying to play “Blood” every single night…but come on, guys! I think we can all agree that “Blood and Thunder” is the musical equivalent of arm wrestling God…and winning.
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