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Taste of Chaos 2009 @ The Garrick 04/05/09

Four Year Strong do their thing at Taste of Chaos. Check out an interview with them here.

Each year the annual Taste of Chaos tour hits Winnipeg, it seems to continually downsize. 2006 saw the event at the massive MTS Centre but the next year it was only held at the Convention Centre. TOC never came in 2008 but with a line-up featuring Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet for my Valentine among others, it never really mattered much. Now in 2009 the tour returns with a line up that doesn’t suck but it’s also held at the intimate Garrick and loses the big festival feel, with less booths and 2 less bands. Regardless, it’s still a good time and even without a revolving stage, wait times between sets are still minimal and that is a big plus as far as I’m concerned.

The first band to hit the stage was FAME, a metalcore outfit from Winnipeg who I’ve personally never heard before that night. The band won the Ernie Ball sponsored contest that allowed them the opening honours and they were alright I guess. Mostly pretty generic however, they sounded just like any other band that could be defined as metalcore these days.

Next up was Cancer Bats, who totally shredded. The band hails from Toronto and has been through Winnipeg a bunch of times already so they got a great response. It was my first time seeing them personally though and I was impressed with their energetic stage presence and how well their hits like “Hail Destroyer” come off in a live setting.

 Pierce the Veil is a band I’ve never listened to in my life. I had heard of them and I knew they were on Equal Vision but that’s it. They too were generic but still managed to add some spice into their set. They danced around with their neon guitars kind of like how I remembered Sum 41 used to. They also tossed in some covers, “Beat It” by Michael Jackson and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” The music reminded me of their label mates Chiodos a bit, lead vocalist Vic Fuentes has a very high pitched voice and they employ the scream, sing formula. Pierce the Veil was also the band that did a signing after their set, something I remember TOC doing in previous years as well.

The only band that didn’t scream that night was Four Year Strong but they still had plenty of break downs to make up for it. The band rushed out onstage in their exclusive Letterman hoodies and delivered a fast paced set filled with tunes like “Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die” and “Catastrophe.” The band’s synth player Josh Lyford made an extra effort to get the crowd pumped up since the crowd gang vocals were almost inaudible. It was obvious a lot of people weren’t familiar with the Massachusetts five piece but the set didn’t suffer too much, not even close to how it would later on in the night.

Much to my surprise, the band most Winnipeggers were stoked to see was British metalcore act Bring Me the Horizon. Almost everyone was totally into their set and knew the words, leaving me and a small minority a little perplexed. I actually am familiar with this band, through Epitaph I received a copy of their latest effort Suicide Season but I just never got their appeal. Some of the screams they bellow are too grating even for me and the lyrics are absolutely horrific, mostly about blood, death, slit wrists, drinking and pissing on girls. The music isn’t overly technical either, mostly just power chords tuned down. I will say that “Chelsea Smile” has a catchy opening riff but that’s all I can say that I liked off of that CD. And then the front man Oli Sykes. Looking at him, I guess I can see why he’d be every scene girl’s wet dream and I think that is great part of their appeal. I also think it’s hilarious how he tries to be a bad ass with his excessive profanity, it seems like he tries a little too hard. Though lots of people fall for it and people were screaming out for an encore. When they realized that wasn’t going to happen though, they went home and that was most of the audience, leaving a very, very small amount of people to stick around for the headliners, New Jersey post hardcore group Thursday.

Now I know Winnipeg crowds often suck but Taste of Chaos proved this was even more glaringly obvious. I moved right up to the barrier and wasn’t even squished in because hardly anyone cared about Thursday and that bummed me out a lot. I’ve never been to a show where the headliners got such a horrific response. Either way Thursday came out and gave it their all, the best band of the night by far. “Last Call,” “Cross out the Eyes” and “War all the Time” were just some of the many tunes the band played, while letting loose huge black balloons to float around at the set’s midpoint.

Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome to see Thursday in such an intimate setting but after seeing the crowd pumped up for Bring Me the Horizon, you just knew they deserved better, especially after releasing the amazing Common Existence back in February. As Geoff asked the crowd if this would be a tragic comedy or disaster movie, my heart sank. Sure, they may not have lots of tattoos, neon clothes and scene hair. Yes, they might have been a band for a decade and are nearing their 30’s but so what? It’s a shame that supposedly one of the most progressive genres of music is sinking this low. Awesome show, horrible crowd.

Final Verdict?

4/5

Reviewed by: Deborah Remus

Check out an interview with Thursday here.