Concert Details:
Bands: Coheed and Cambria, Between the Buried and Me, Russian Circles
Location: 930 Club, Washington, DC
Setlist:
- Pretelethal
- Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry the Defiant
- Key Entity Extraction II: Holly Wood the Cracked
- A Favor House Atlantic
- Goodnight, Fair Lady
- The Crowing
- Key Entity Extraction III: Vic the Butcher
- Key Entity Extraction IV: Evagria the Faithful
- Iron Fist
- Here We Are Juggernaut
- Dark Side of Me
- In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Encore:
13. Wake Up
14. Key Entity Extraction I: Domino the Destitute
15. Welcome Home
I had an early access pass from buying the Afterman: Ascension Deluxe Edition which allowed me to get in for a one song acoustic set from just Claudio.
The first opening band, seen below was Russian Circles, a three piece instrumental band. They came out, didn't say a word, and blew us away. They were absolutely phenomenal and continued the string of phenomenal opening bands that I would see again without question.
After Russian Circles came Between the Buried and Me another amazing band. They are coming back to the area in October and there's a good chance I'll see them again.
Coheed and Cambria, oh Coheed and Cambria. This is the third time I've seen them and probably the second best show of theirs I've attended and was a lot better than the last one (although that one was mostly bad because of sound quality).
The show opened strong with a song that builds quickly and then they immediately dropped into a loud and fast song that brought the crowd into the show immediately and started up the pit below, which was being monitored by multiple bouncers. From their the show moved into one of my favorite songs from one of their recent two albums which has two parts, one where Claudio appears to be singing as a the character of the song and sounds pure evil when he sings, which is a particular talent of Claudio's, and one where that sounds more like the storyteller telling us about what is happening.
From there, they moved into A Favor House Atlantic, a song from their second album which they pretty much have to play. It's was a good song for them to play, because although most of the crowd knew the first two songs, everyone there knew that one, so it really got the crowd into the show. After that, the show backed off a little with the next song, partially so I think Claudio could get a break and show the crowd could as well. The next song was from another earlier album and then two from Afterman, finishing that part up with two Key Entity songs before going into the first true slow song.
Whenever they move into a slow song, Claudio always pulls his hair up so the crowd can see his face as compared to when it's down and his face is completely obscured as he switches between throwing his head around and singing. The aforementioned slow song was Iron Fist, which relaxed the crowd. It's a wonderful song for them to play, the emotion of the song is meant to convey that the singer is suffering and they do a great job of making us feel that.
After Iron Fist, they broke into their only acknowledgement that their 5th Album even exists. It's a loud screaming song that may be the only real bright spot on what most people I know consider to be the weakest album. They then dropped into another slow song before truly unleashing with In Keep Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, which is easily their best live song. It's a long song that they always play extended that completely envelopes the crowd. The best part each time I've seen them play of that song is when the song drops off and if you didn't know any better you would think it's over, which is followed by them moving into an extended solo before the whole crowd screams with them chants with them followed by Claudio singing and then the crowd screaming with him "Man your own jackhammer, man your battle stations" after which the song finally fades out and the band leaves the stage.
For the encore, they opened with a slow sad song from their second album and then flew right into a song off the first part of the most recent album before launching into their most famous song, Welcome Home which is about as loud as Coheed is capable of playing. Claudio pulls out a double neck guitar for the song and wanders through the crowd before finally returning to the stage and closing the show.
On top of all of the amazing audio, Coheed puts on a great video show which was enjoyable but sometimes distracting. Overall, it was a great energetic show and if it wasn't because I have another show happening the same day, I'd be going to see them again in August.
