August 9, 2004
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The Strhess tour on Aug 8, 2004 at the House of Blues Anaheim
kicked ass! I’m not really a fan of hardcore metal / metalcore (or what I call “growl metal”) but
I’m a fan of Shadow’s Fall, so I had to go check it out. The
other acts that night was Remembering Never, Himsa, and As I Lay
Dying. Standing in line to enter was humorous to me, because I
was the only one in line that had a blue Shadows Fall shirt, while
everyone had a black shirt. Metal guys and black shirts.
At Remembering Never‘s set, halfway through a song the singer stopped
it all of a sudden. Apparently there was a “white power guy”
punching a guy in the crowd. They got him kicked out, and the
band pretty much stated that all racist bastards should grow the hell
up! The band itself wasn’t bad and has some worthy headbanging moments.Himsa
was the next act and I’ve never heard of them before, but boy I’m glad
I did. They were really good and impressed the hell outta
me. After the show I went to buy their CD and a t-shirt from
their booth outside, and I was surprised that the singer (John
Pettibone) was himself out there selling the merchandise. I got
him to sign my new CD and gave him props for rocking out. Hell yeah!As I Lay Dying
was the following act and it seems that a lot of their fans showed up
for this gig. I’ve heard them before when they opened for the
Killswitch Engage / In Flames tour, and they do rock out. They
grew their hair longer since last I saw them, and they look better at
headbanging because of it. They definitely scream metal to my ears, but
I think they are just too hardcore for me to be following them.Lastly we got Shadow’s Fall
and they rocked the house. The main singer (Brian Fair) has this
looonnggg hair that he swings around when he head bangs and it’s quite
a sight to see. They played a good assortment of songs including
a couple of new tunes from their upcoming album. I actually
almost missed their encore performance. I started walking out to
the merchandise section at the end of the final song, when I hear “Do
you want to hear one more?” I went back and was treated to
“Crushing Belial” which I was actually waiting for but thought they
weren’t going to play. Good thing they did. They were also
filming their gig for their upcoming live DVD, so just maybe I might be
in it.My neck hurts from head banging and my ears are still a little on the deaf side, but all in all, Awesome night!
