Over a hundred frustrated heavy metal fans in black T-shirts stood illuminated by the streetlights on Grant Street in Buffalo for about two hours Wednesday evening, outside a rather non-descript brick building marked "Showplace Theater."
The groups that played at the Showplace included Remembering Never, Black Dahlia Murder, Terror, and Unearth. All of the bands had sound problems to varying degrees and were apologetic, blaming the errors on the incompetence of others.
Remembering Never opened with what sounded like air blasts of some sort and a message: "Change the world." The lead singer did what sounded like a Tarzan impersonation and they played a number of titles including "Incisions." There was not much audience reaction, just some fleeting head bobbing and weak applause.
At one point the singer apologized for his "hoarseness," although it wasn't clear how that would affect his singing, which was guttural in nature. If anything, a hoarse voice would probably be an advantage.
Black Dahlia Murder played second and opened with some impressive guitar action on songs like "Closed Casket Requiem" and "The Blackest Incarnation." They had a more visibly emotional stage presence than Remembering Never. Vocalist Trevor Strnad went wild with hand gestures, specifically claw-like motions. His singing was a combination of screams and carnal roars that could almost be comprehended at times.
During this performance there was more slight head bobbing, but everyone's feet remained motionless, save one guy, up front, in a tinfoil hat, who was dancing about wildly forming his own solo pit.
Terror came on stage next, demanding movement from the crowd and initially only receiving a slightly better response than the previous bands. The lead singer, Scott Vogel, championed the usual hardcore rhetoric.
"Everyone inside here is a family," said Vogel, adding, "The real enemy is outside that door." He also mentioned the release of their latest album, "One With the Underdogs."
Vogel then jumped into the audience to try to excite the crowd, he yelled at the audience to stage dive and by the third song in their set, the crowd had picked up enough for mosh pits to form and people were stage diving. His messages of "live your life" and "follow your heart" seemed contradictory to ordering the audience to do what he wanted. Towards the end of the set, there were full-blown pits.
Unearth was the final band and although the crowd seemed to thin out a little after the Terror performance, they made up for it with amplified enthusiasm.
Unearth made a dramatic entrance with the stage lights off which excited the crowd. Pits of pseudo-ninjas kicking and punching with Liu Kang-like moves formed quickly. The audience was so rough with each other that at one point the lead singer announced "one man down" and told everyone to be more careful with one another.
Unearth had an amazing physical performance, jump-kicking around the stage. At one point a member of Unearth actually spit some type of liquid off the stage into the audience. Unearth played a number of songs including "Only F---ing Midnight" and finished off with the night with "Black Hearts."
