The South's finest metal musicians returned to New Jersey’s Starland Ballroom last night, as DOWN played a crushing set for a frenzied crowd of metalheads.
After a stunning show at the Best Buy Theater Thursday night (my review here), Down played Philadelphia on Friday before returning to the tri-state area on Saturday. The New Orleans supergroup has been touring in fits and starts over the past few years, as work on a long-awaited album fourth progresses and the musicians share time with their other bands. This ‘mini-tour’ features only one last remaining date in Nashville, TN, before the group heads to Europe for a handful of festival dates.
The lack of regular Down tour dates made last night and Thursday night’s shows all the more special, because after a year and a half since Down last came to New York City, one might have forgotten just how damn good this band is. Frontman Phil Anslemo is regularly ranked as one of heavy metal’s most talented frontmen, and it’s not just his ability to sing, scream, and croon with raw aggression and fervor. Anselmo projects ass-kicking bravado with every move he makes, and a Down concert is nothing if not an exercise in kicking ass for 90 straight minutes.
In contrast to Thursday’s show at the modern, comfortable, flat screen-filled Times Square Best Buy Theater, the Starland Ballroom is a grungy club in an industrial area, and last night it seemed to be populated purely by aggressive security staffers and even more aggressive Jersey metalheads. While Best Buy is a great venue, Starland’s cramped quarters and ‘what-are-YOU-lookin’ at?’ sensibilities meshed perfectly with the violent music about to be unleashed on the thousand or so packed-in fans.
Down kicked off the show with Eyes of the South, taking their time jamming out on the bluesy opening before exploding into full heavy metal mode, sending mosh pits into a frenzy and crowdsurfers appearing from every direction. Starland’s club-style layout forces fans up front into one small area and everyone else off to the sides, and the central floor was essentially one giant free-for-all, with bodies slamming into one another for the entirety of the show.
Anselmo was in full messianic-frontman mode as usual, easily commanding the crowd in between bellowing through his vocals and thrashing around during instrumental breakdowns. The rest of the band hit that magical mix between tightly locked in and loosely jammy, pounding through slower songs with a groove that could knock an elephant unconscious on Lysergic Funeral Procession and Ghosts Along The Mississippi, and stepping up the pace as fans in all corners screamed along on heavier tracks like Lifer and N.O.D.
Anselmo, sporting a visible head scar from his bloody run-in with a guitar at the New York show, dedicated an especially intense Losing All to everyone suffering from the economic downturn. The song also saw a violent scuffle break out just feet from the stage - watch my high quality video of Losing All, including an interruption by the fight, from the left sidebar of this page.
While most of the setlist was identical in content, though not order, to the New York show, the band did add in On March The Saints, followed by Phil introducing Hail the Leaf by asking “who likes to smoke some motherf*ckin’ marijuanua?” Despite a tight eye by security, fans throughout the floor seemed to very much enjoy hailing the leaf, tiny puffs of smoke giving away tokers huddling amid the swarming bodies slamming across the room.
Every ear-splitting second of a Down concert is pure heavy metal bliss, but when all is said and done, there are only two songs that bring out the most vehement reaction from the crowd, and that’s why Down ends every show with Stone The Crow and Bury Me In Smoke. Fans played wild air guitar as Pepper Keenan ripped through the solo to Stone the Crow, and the crowd roared the chorus of Down’s catchiest song even louder than the PA system, but even that paled in comparison to the ten minutes of insanity unleashed by a live performance of the monstrous riff otherwise known as Bury Me In Smoke. Waves of crowdsurfers crashed over the front rows into the waiting arms of security as all five members of the band thrashed about the stage, eventually joined by opening bands haarp and Danava to jam out a slow, seemingly endless finale to the so-called ‘riff that kills all riffs.’ It was a sweaty, deafened, exuberant group of heavy metal lovers who finally exited the shell-shocked Starland Ballroom at just minutes to midnight.
Down’s combination of sludgy guitar playing, killer riffs, slamming beats, and Anselmo’s seething, raw vocals makes the band one of the most stand out, talented acts still out there and playing in 2011. The sum of the band's talents even exceeds that which Down can provide an outlet for, with all five members active in at least one additional metal band. All those efforts have been delaying regular Down activity, be it recording or touring, but after this four-date outing, if nothing else, these New Orleans natives have firmly proved that they and their band are as tight and hungry as ever. The future of Down, and indeed all of heavy metal, looks bright indeed.
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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