When I entered the venue at half past six the first band of the evening had already left the stage. Only a few people had the opportunity to see the show, but that’s not weird considering the fact they went on stage around six. So for me there was nothing left to do than grab a beer with Carn and Buzzin who also just entered the venue.

 

So this is how it happened that Drowning Pool was the first band of this evening for me in a venue that wasn’t very crowded. Starting the set with ‘Sinner’ of their equally named debut album Sinner, made it clear that this audience was hard to conquer. During the set Drowning Pool sought contact with the audience for several times, but most of the times they didn’t get much response. In the end it was vocalist Ryan McCombs who saved the show with his great vocals and funny lines. At the end of the show the songs ‘Bodies’ and ‘Cowboys From Hell’ were dedicated to Dave Williams (former vocalist of Drowning Pool) and Dimebag Darryl.

 

The third band of that night, DevilDriver, had the same problems with the audience like Drowning Pool, an audience that was just there to see Life Of Agony and didn’t care for the rest of the bands. With a show that was short and powerful they managed to create some movement in front of the stage, but overall the rest of the audience was pretty lame. The fact that DevilDriver played two songs of their latest album The Last Kind Words and their massive hit ‘I Could Care Less’ couldn’t make the difference either.

 

Spoiler NYC is the band of bassplayer Alan Robert of Life Of Agony and is the last support band of this evening. With their mixture of Hardcore, Punk and Rock ’n Roll they are the last band that tried to warm up the audience for Life Of Agony. About this I can be very short; they failed miserably. Their music is not original enough and several drumrolls are exactly copied form Life Of Agony. With the song ´Suicide Will Tell´, which was dedicated to a close friend of the band, they ended their set.

 

Finally the band where the whole venue was waiting for, Life Of Agony. With a set of both new and old material they managed to do what no other band had done before that night. The entire venue was screaming, shouting, moshing and singing along. Keith Caputo, who stood on stage in a shirt that once was worn by Ozzy or at least that was the story they told us, was a bit detached in the beginning. After ‘The Day He Died’, that's about Keith’s father, the entire audience sang along and he got loosened up. From that point on the show was only getting better and better. It was just like Life Of Agony played a bit tighter, the vocals were a bit better and even Keith was making contact with the audience. I truly enjoyed the show, which is one of my better shows this year and will end up in my yearlist for sure.