...played last night in Seattle. One of the other touring bands was pretty interesting. The other touring band and one of the locals that opened up were terrible.
Vital Remains impressed me quite a bit. Probably one of the best death metal performances I've seen in a long time. Dave Suzuki offered up some of the most tasty lead playing I've heard in a death metal band. Plus he was running through one of those Crate GT1200H heads and it sounded great for his leads. Guitar of choice was the ESP Explorer copy (LTD EX-400?). Tony Lazaro used his "Crucifier" all night along with a two channel Recto of some sort, he had a couple pedals on the floor but they were tucked right in front of a stage monitor. He at least had a tuner and I think a noise suppressor. Glen Benton's vocals were pretty much what he's been doing for years. "RRHHHHHH RHHH HRHRRH HHHHHRRR RAAAAAAH" with Suzuki coming in a lot with higher backing vocals. Tim Yeung was awesome, very fast, and very tight on the music. Lots of circlar headbanging while playing. They also probably had the most brutal pit I've seen in Seattle.
Deicide was (surprisingly) good. I was expecting the worse after they'd done about 2 or 3 really bad tours in the past few years. Steve Asheim's playing was the tightest and fastest I've seen. Jack Owen (as always) pulls off the tightest and heaviest rhythm guitar work. Ralph Santolla impressed me quite a bit as well. Last time I saw him with Iced Earth, I thought his playing was pretty sloppy and his tone was incredibly thin. He was playing through the same two channel recto, no effects, just using one channel as a rhythm and the second channel as a lead. His lead tone was smooth, and very big. He was using those ESP/LTD DV8's the whole night (possibly the ESP ones, didn't get a good look) Lead work was precise and pretty technical. Glen Benton was Glen Benton, but he did seem to be a lot more precise on his bass work. Jack Owen was running one of the Digitech 2101 Studio Artist preamps, along with some other single space unit (it was blue and had some blue LED lights on the front of it monitoring levels). Not sure if he was using the single space blue unit to power his cab or running into the Crate GT1200H (which was hidden behind the amp. Owen also was running one of the pointy Dime guitars that say "DIME" on the headstock.
Benton also hyped the new album a bunch saying that this would be the last tour that they would be playing a lot of the old songs as the new album is the best thing he's ever recorded.
Vital Remains impressed me quite a bit. Probably one of the best death metal performances I've seen in a long time. Dave Suzuki offered up some of the most tasty lead playing I've heard in a death metal band. Plus he was running through one of those Crate GT1200H heads and it sounded great for his leads. Guitar of choice was the ESP Explorer copy (LTD EX-400?). Tony Lazaro used his "Crucifier" all night along with a two channel Recto of some sort, he had a couple pedals on the floor but they were tucked right in front of a stage monitor. He at least had a tuner and I think a noise suppressor. Glen Benton's vocals were pretty much what he's been doing for years. "RRHHHHHH RHHH HRHRRH HHHHHRRR RAAAAAAH" with Suzuki coming in a lot with higher backing vocals. Tim Yeung was awesome, very fast, and very tight on the music. Lots of circlar headbanging while playing. They also probably had the most brutal pit I've seen in Seattle.
Deicide was (surprisingly) good. I was expecting the worse after they'd done about 2 or 3 really bad tours in the past few years. Steve Asheim's playing was the tightest and fastest I've seen. Jack Owen (as always) pulls off the tightest and heaviest rhythm guitar work. Ralph Santolla impressed me quite a bit as well. Last time I saw him with Iced Earth, I thought his playing was pretty sloppy and his tone was incredibly thin. He was playing through the same two channel recto, no effects, just using one channel as a rhythm and the second channel as a lead. His lead tone was smooth, and very big. He was using those ESP/LTD DV8's the whole night (possibly the ESP ones, didn't get a good look) Lead work was precise and pretty technical. Glen Benton was Glen Benton, but he did seem to be a lot more precise on his bass work. Jack Owen was running one of the Digitech 2101 Studio Artist preamps, along with some other single space unit (it was blue and had some blue LED lights on the front of it monitoring levels). Not sure if he was using the single space blue unit to power his cab or running into the Crate GT1200H (which was hidden behind the amp. Owen also was running one of the pointy Dime guitars that say "DIME" on the headstock.
Benton also hyped the new album a bunch saying that this would be the last tour that they would be playing a lot of the old songs as the new album is the best thing he's ever recorded.
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