New Orleans supergroup DOWN played a blistering, crushing set at Midtown’s Best Buy Theater last night, delivering a nonstop frenzy of mosh pits and headbanging from start to finish as not even a bloody gash in the head could stop singer Phil Anselmo from giving his all to the metal masses.
Metalheads swarmed Times Square and the Theater District in the hours leading up to night’s three band lineup, with black t-shirt-clad fans appearing from every direction to the Crossroads to the World. While Best Buy has hosted a wide range of metal shows recently, from Cradle of Filth to Motorhead to Overkill, Down brings out a special breed of metalhead, and the band’s distinctive ‘Jesus with a cigarette’ image could be seen on t-shirts everywhere you looked, much as when Down last played the venue back when it was still the Nokia Theater (my 2009 review here).
Down brought along fellow New Orleans band haarp, who are signed to Anselmo’s Housecore label, to open the show. The band’s sound could be described as sludgy, along the lines of Eyehategod, and honestly it’s hard to tell when one slow, nihilistic song ended and another began. But during what may have still been the first song, the very stoned-looking singer climbed down into the audience, and proceeded to stomp about the mosh pits, the stairs, and literally all the way back to the last row of the theater high-fiving amused fans, all while bellowing into his wireless microphone.
Singing from the center of a mosh pit is a hard act to follow, but second opener Danava gave it their best, working their progressive-style metal into slow, trippy breakdowns that had fans in the audience breaking out sweet-smelling joints, although nothing compared to the smokefest that would accompany Down.
The roar of the crowd was overwhelming when the lights finally dimmed around 10pm, and Down strutted onto the stage. Phil Anselmo, arguably one of the most messianic figures in heavy metal, announced “This is a song called Hail the Leaf,” and an hour and a half of absolute sonic madness kicked off as the smell and smoke of fans hailing the leaf filled the theater.
The chemistry between musicians is what makes rock n’ roll truly shine - Jagger and Richards, McCartney and Lennon, Axl and Slash - but none of those duos have anything on the collective vibe the four members of Down give off (bassist Rex Brown is sitting out this tour). Guitarists Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein play like brothers, barrelling across the stage at each other, playing not only with their fingers but somehow using their entire bodies to blast out what could only be described as pure, raw, riffage. Drummer Jimmy Bower keeps a fierce beat that keeps everything glues together, and on top of the complex, sludgy yet tight waves of sound roars Philip Anselmo, alpha male extraordinaire.
It’s not just Anselmo’s voice that makes him such a gripping frontman, it’s his ‘stronger than all’ attitude that emanates from his every movement. Down surfs that fine line of aggressive heavy metal without ever descending into real death or thrash, and on songs like Lysergic Funeral Procession the entire venue fed off the paced fire and rage Phil gave off, mosh pits churning and crowd surfers screaming along as they tumbled over the barricades in response to his gripping singing and frenzied screams.
That rage turned to actual blood on the night’s third song, Lifer (which Down always dedicates to murdered Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell), when a furiously headbanging Anselmo accidentally sliced his shaved head on Pepper’s guitar. But even blood running freely out of his skull couldn’t stop the singer from storming to all corners of the stage, slamming about during breakdowns and riffs, and roaring through his vocals with all the fire and vengeance of a man possessed. In fact Phil didn’t seem to even realize he was hurt, finishing the song before he bothered to wipe the blood out of his eyes.
The band’s setlist drifted throughout their three album discography, hitting newer tracks like N.O.D and The Path as well as classics like Ghosts Along The Mississippi and a particularly crowd-rousing New Orleans Is A Dying Whore. Disappointingly absent, though, were some more mellow favorites like Jail and Learn From This Mistake, which Jimmy Bower explained to me during our phone interview earlier this month (read it here) is due to the band feeling more about “just being heavy” lately.
But the final three songs of the night belonged to Down’s debut album Nola, easily one of the finest metal records ever laid to tape. Mosh pits exploded in every direction with a vehement “GODDAMN!” during Eyes of the South, and the entire theater sang along on the always-passionate Stone The Crow. The band hit a snag on what should have been the climax of the evening, Bury Me In Smoke, when a guitar conked out and they stopped the song just into the first verse. But Anselmo, always the consummate frontman, demanded “we’re gonna do this right,” and the band instantly picked up from the song’s signature sledgehammer riff like a perfectly calibrated machine, wrapping up the night with a long jam outro as fog filled the stage and exhausted fans bashed around for the final, crushing minutes of the night.
Metalheads are a loyal breed of music fan, fiercely supportive of their favorite bands and musicians in every way possible. And so when Down is on stage, it’s not just the supergroup of Louisiana's best metal players that’s creating a vibrant, cathartic, empowering energy, it’s a giant family of thousands vibing back and forth on the growling crunch of the music, alive like nothing else, total strangers screaming the same words right in each others’ faces like lifelong friends. Anselmo and his bandmates have created something incredibly unique, strikingly relatable, and exquisitely soul-wrenching in Down, and it’s something you have to experience live and in person to truly appreciate.
Fortunately, fans can still catch Down’s New Jersey show at the Starland Ballroom tomorrow night, April 30th. For more on Down, check out my interviews with Phil, Jimmy, Kirk and Pepper, and as always, stay in the loop with the Hard Rock Examiner for further information on tickets on-sales and all local rock and heavy metal news by subscribing at the top of this page, or follow me at twitter.com/NYROCKEXAMINER.
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