Blogcoven

Until I found myself standing in a big room with fifteen guitars, four rock gods, and a thousand people, I had been unaware just how badly I needed to rock, and rock hard.

That’s getting a bit ahead of things, though. I went to see Seether last night at the House of Blues Anaheim. Dark New Day, which gets two horns up, and Crossfade, which does not, opened. I went with Paul.za (who was a concertgoing Seether fan back when they were Saron Gas) and Texas (who owns a Seether album, making him a better fan than I). HOB Anaheim is smack in the middle of the Disneyplex surrounding and supporting DisneyLand. Now you have all the information you need.

I dislike Disney. I have an immediate, instinctive distrust of anyone/thing that puts so much obvious effort into making me feel warm and fuzzy. (Perhaps this is why I resisted marriage so vehemently.) So as we descended the escalator from the “Mickey and Friends” parking structure and made our way to the tram, you can imagine the sigh of relief I heaved when I saw a trio of people who did not look like Disney people. These would lead us to the long-haired, black-clad, freaky rock people who would be enjoying Seether with us that evening. We followed them through Downtown Disney where, lo and behold, there was a queue of long-haired, black-clad freaky rock people outside a House of Blues.

We stopped for Mexican. The Tortilla Jo’s nearby has excellent salsa.

We queued for some time, then were frisked. Once Texas was divested of his pocketknife we got our nifty black light hand stamps and entered the venue where we staked out a place and waited for the show to start.

Start it did, though later than I’d expected. (Silly me, thinking the website saying “Doors 7:00 Show 8:00″ means that the show will actually start at 8:00. Really, I should know better by now.) I have been shockingly lucky with opening acts lately. Through Dark New Day’s entire set I thought to myself, I really must get closer so I can rock harder without looking terribly out of place in the back with the more civilised concertgoers. One comment was that they tried too hard, that they were churning out the faster tempo and the harder rock all the time without letting up for a song or two (as most “bigger” bands are wont to do). I sort of liked it. Unless a slow song is extremely good or something I know very well and like, those lulls in a concert are the points where I realise I’ve been standing for three hours, it’s hot, and I’m thirsty. This is not a problem when the rock is hard and fast.

For the first time in quite a while, I was happy.

They reminded me a lot of Papa Roach from his first album, with a little more of the metal and a little less of the nu. They also played around with time signatures. I respect that. I hope I hear from these guys again.

I can’t really say the same for Crossfade.

After the spectacular opener, I dragged my concert buddies farther down on the floor. If the first opening act was that good, this was going to be a mind-blowing night and I wanted to be closer to the front. In the face of such rock, however, Crossfade ended up being a bit of a damp squib. The lead guitarist was somewhat interesting with a Brad Pitt-esque swagger, but their songs, with the exception of the singles which I’d heard before, failed to impress. Next band.

Seether rocked. I rocked with them. (Is it rocking with them or at them? Much, I think, depends on the perspective…) Little more can be said.

In addition to their songs, they covered a Deftones song (“Minerva”) and brought out Crossfade and Dark New Day to do a quick tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd (which I would have respected far more if they’d done more than just the guitar riff and chorus to “Sweet Home Alabama” — is a first verse so much to ask?) as well as an excellent cover of “Man in the Box.” Shaun (lead singer of Seether) stepped back and let the Dark New Day singer (Brett, I think) sing, and he was spot on. I was mightily impressed.

The evening closed quietly, as the band(s) exited. The lead guitar (Pat Callahan?) sat stage right and backlit against the darkened stage, and played the opening four bars from “Broken” twice before settling into a cadence until Shaun returned to the stage, took the microphone, and sang the song through his long fuchsia hair.

Then I went home and had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a week.