When I went to this show, I had no idea how closely tied it was to Phoenix. In fact, until I did a little bit of research just before writing this idea, I really had no idea what this show was all about. The show was titled "12th Annual D-Low Memorial." I had no idea who D-Low was, nor did I care much, the lineup sounded fun.
As it turns out, D-Low (Dana Wells) was the stepson of Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy frontman Max Cavalera. He was killed in Phoenix in a road accident, I don't know the details. What is particularly interesting though is that besides Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy, all of the bands that played were from Phoenix.
The Asylum were the first band I caught, and they were a smaller local band. They played a Thrashier version of an almost Metalcore rooted style, shifting between more aggressive music and songs that would almost fit into mainstream radio. As it turned out though, I thought their less aggressive songs were their best. Of course, I am really a wimpy metalhead at heart. The band was also really nice at their merch booth, very friendly.
Incite was next and these guys seemed more popular and people seemed to know the words so I assumed they were a national act until they announced that they were from here. Their music was pretty thrashy and aggressive as well, but I felt like they were not as good as the previous band. The aggressiveness never went anywhere.
Sacred Reich played a good old 80's style Thrash. The sort of Thrash that Metallica and Megadeth popularized, which can actually be heard on mainstream radio now and again. Not the totally balls-out sort of Thrash. As it turns out, this was good, I really enjoyed these guys' set, even if I was getting tired of Thrash at this point. The highlight though was their "audience participation" section, which consisted of a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs, a fabulous song. I was glad that the audience knew all of the words to the point that the vocalist rarely even stepped up to the mic to sing. It was a really good cover too. The saddest portion of the whole night though was when the band asked for a moment of silence in respect to D-Low (whom the entire show was being thrown in momeory of), and all of the drunks in the crowd couldn't even provide that. The vocalist was extremely upset about this fact.
Soulfly was next, surprisingly (they were listed as the headliners). They played a pretty long set, but the highlight was when they brought out a couple of drums (including a trashcan), and a bunch of random people, and just played a large drum solo. It really is amazing how much can be done with a crowd of people drumming, and how dancy and feel good such music is. Still, Soulfly's songs were pretty good too and the crowd called them back for an encore after their performance.
Cavalera Conspiracy closed the night. They began with some of their new originals, but then ventured into what I can only assume were Sepultura covers (Sepultua was the previous band both Cavalera brothers played in). In addition, for the second to last song, D-Low's little brother came out and drummed with the band for a song. That was quite cute. Unfortunately, Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy sound awfully similar, so the last 2 bands really ran together, even with the break in between the sets to change the stage setup. Both bands did unique things to spice up their performance though and in the end both performances were really great. Even the too-cool-for-school kids in the back were headbanging by the end.
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