Wayne Static, American Head Charge, Smile
Empty Soul, Thira
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Skyway Theatre, Minneapolis, MN
Click on any of the photos to see more live pictures of the respective band on my Flickr site.
About 20 bands had
been playing since early afternoon in the main theater and the smaller Studio B
room at the Skyway, and I arrived just as Blue Felix left the stage. The time
between sets was very short, so I reluctantly stayed in the theater and missed all
of the performances in Studio B. This was my first time seeing local industrial
metal band Thira, and the horrendous
sound made it a disappointing experience. The band was tearing it up on stage,
but unfortunately the muddy sound left Thira’s music an indecipherable mess.
Surprisingly, the
crowd was slow to warm up to rock radio favorites Smile Empty Soul. Leading off their 30 minute set with “Black And
Blue” from their new album Chemicals, the band mixed up some album cuts with a few of their many singles. After playing
“Don’t Ever Leave” and “Faker”, the audience finally came to life midway
through the show for “Silhouettes”. “False Alarm” and “Bottom Of A Bottle” were
well-received before “Hard Biter” closed the set. Original bassist Ryan Martin
is staying off the road due to the expected arrival of he and his wife’s first
child this summer, so Phil Lipscomb from Taproot
filled in and seemed like a natural fit for the band. Guitarist/vocalist Sean
Danielsen was stuck by the mic stand for most of the show, but he managed to
step back at times while ripping out some solos. Despite the slow start, Smile
Empty Soul managed to put on a great show that was far too short.
I hadn’t seen local
favorites American Head Charge since
their release show for The War Of Art
at First Avenue in 2001, and tonight left me with a far more favorable
impression of the band. They came out like they had something to prove to the
2,000+ strong crowd, and one couldn’t help but be impressed. Yes, this was a
hometown crowd, but the audience went nuts throughout the entire nine-song,
hour-long show from the moment the band took the stage and launched into “A
Violent Reaction”. Nearly the entire set was drawn from The War Of Art and last year’s Shoot
EP; “Pledge Allegiance” from The Feeding
was the only exception. Guitarist Ted Hallows was having what appeared to be major
technical problems and the band forged on without him until he finally emerged
from behind the backline to play late in the show. A frustratingly long time
was taken between songs, often to do silly things like handing the remaining
sandwiches from catering out into the crowd. Despite the problems, American
Head Charge was the highlight of the night. Former guitarist Benji Helbert even came
out to play “Seamless”, while guitarist Karma Cheema took a dive into the crowd and got
into a scuffle with security (I previously wrote out this here in some detail,
and I now have some video footage of the incident that I’ll be posting). American
Head Charge is sounding better than they ever have, and they proved to be a
difficult act to follow.
