Sentenced, Dark Tranquility, Kill Switch Engage, and In Flames
Date: September 17, 2002
Venue: The Glass House
City: Pomona, California
This was one of those concerts that was on my live show calendar for a month! I am a tremendous fan of Sentenced, and was extremely curious about Dark Tranquility and In Flames.
After getting home from another boring day at work stuck behind my computer, I was anxious to get ready and head to Pomona to release some pent up aggression. Unfortunately I got the show times mixed up and realized that the pending concert would start at 7 p.m. and not 8 p.m. like I had originally thought! Rushing out the door at precisely 7 o’clock I pushed my poor car to its limits, screaming through Southern California traffic and avoiding the ever-vigilant California Highway Patrol. It took approximately 27 minutes for me to finally arrive, at which point I rushed up to the marquee counter and bought my ticket. Then I saw the real line of people waiting to get in…. wrapped around the goddamn block!
As I waited, I heard a familiar song brewing from inside the bowels of The Glass House. It was “Killing Me, Killing You”, a Sentenced song. I was stricken! I figured that surely they wouldn’t put Sentenced as the opening band?? The only band I hadn’t heard of was Kill Switch Engage and I assumed that they would be the ones opening. I was wrong, dead wrong, and my lack of timing cost me to miss over half of the Sentenced performance. When entering the dark club finally the talented group had just finished up with a song off of their Cold White Light release. I pushed my way through the audience up to the front just in time for the ever cheerful song off of the album Frozen by the name of The Suicider. Whilst banging my head and singing along they quickly changed into I Kill Myself off of Cold White Light. Two suicide songs mixed in one? How quaint! The last song was one I knew well, Nepenthe off of the amazing Amok album. I was really surprised how many Sentenced fans there didn’t know the words to this ever badass song of alcohol abuse! The band had some technical mishaps, most notably was Miika Tenkula’s lack of distortion as he started the solo for The Suicider. Nothing but a clean tone where a raging wall of a screaming solo should have been. He pulled it off well though and I didn’t hear that many mistakes made.
During mid-set, as I was kicking myself in the ass for missing almost all of Sentenced, I went to procure an alcoholic beverage from the bar. But to my chagrin, there was no liquor!! That’s right folks, only soft drinks, sold alongside popcorn and salted pretzels! Was this a movie? Was I here actually witnessing some art film?? NO!! I wasn’t, I was at a goddamn metal show, and no alcohol was being served!!! This put a serious damper on things, that and the number of Nu-Metal teeny boppers who were milling about everywhere. I could only guess who they were here to see, Kill Switch Engage. But instead of dwelling on it, I saw that Dark Tranquility was about to take the stage.
I knew of Dark Tranquility’s (DT for now on) musical reputation. A similar clone of In Flames’ Gothenburg, Swedish form of ‘death’ metal, and I was extremely impressed by the energy they put in the show. Mikael Stanne looked very cheerful and full of life on stage, and looked to enjoy the adoration of the few dedicated DT fans out in the crowd. Michael Nicklasson on bass fueled the flames of energy by flying about left and right, riling up the audience. Hovering over every once in a while and looking in disbelief at the kind of reaction he was getting. The fans were throwing that exciting energy right back at him! Niklas Sundin on the main lead guitars was also very energetic, proceeding to thrash through each song with ease and headbanging abandon. Not much action from Martin Henriksson who held up his guitar duties with ease, but without much more than a bored and glazed look in his eyes. Some highlights of the show were off of the new release Damage Done, to include the title track, and Monochromatic Stains, which totally pulverized the crowd.
You could tell the Nu-metal crowd was getting built up by the number of teenagers piling onto the floor. Kill Switch Engage took the stage with what I admit was a lot of punching enthusiasm, and the kids really seemed to dig them. In fact the pit was going wild with all the latest mosh dancing techniques, which include the Windmill, Double Windmill, and The Beatdown to name a few. I’m not kidding by the way, the pre-pubes have this down to an art. In fact I paid more attention to the ‘dancing’ in the pit than the actual group onstage. Kill Switch Engage is nothing to write home about. Occasionally when the singer stopped screeching like the Hatebreed clone he was, a clear voice would bellow out which actually caught my attention. But that didn’t last for long and the next thing you know they jump back into the same rehashed ‘mosh grooves’ the kids love, and they lost me. During the middle of the set while the vocalist was mumbling something or other about how cool the crowd was, a loud obnoxious dude boomed out “YOU SUCK!!” at the top of his lungs. That was pretty funny actually. The really hilarious obnoxious heckler was the one who screamed “NO ONE IS HERE TO SEE YOU!! LEAVE!!” I’ll give it to Kill Switch Engage who handled things maturely and just blew off the evil metal hecklers.
Eventually In Flames worked their way out onto the stage and burst into the ever popular song Clayman from the cd of the same name. Anders and the boys, dressed alike in white button up dress shirts truly have the talent and skill to prove they aren’t just a phenomenon. The In Flames crowd were worked up into a frenzy as they pushed out songs from the new album Reroute To Remain, to include the title track and Cloud Connected. It was really cool to hear them play old material off of Lunar Strain and Subterranean, as well as classics off of The Jester Race, Colony, Whoracle, and Clayman. I still wish that Artifacts Of The Black Rain had been part of the set list (hey, that’s my sentimental first ever In Flames tune I had ever heard!). Technical problems included this squelching from one of the guitars that was highly annoying. That’s all you could hear while Anders tried to incite the crowd to violence. I saw the tech boys running back and forth trying to figure out what was wrong, but the problem was never fixed. Another was some feedback that came through, but I think that was an operator maintenance problem. Otherwise whoever’s instrument it was. The show was very tight and I was glad to get the opportunity to see these guys live. When they come around again, I’ll definitely be there to check them out. Not many pictures, but I’ll be sure to grab some from a couple of friends who were there snapping shots off.
