with Northlane, Wind Walkers, and Sace6
This was an interesting one. Billed as a “metal” show by some, but I’d say it’s more Emo, while others might say metalcore. No matter what you call it, it’s a show we wanted to check out. So, let’s head to the Dome at the Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, CT for the show.
Sace6 opened up the show. I had never heard of them prior and didn’t realize there were 4 band playing. They did not have a long set, but it was a good set. They definitely had some fans there as I saw poeple singing along. They had two singers (unlike the rest of the bands tonight) with their guitarist taking on the dirty vocals duties, while the lead singer covered clean vocals. The dude doing the clean vocals had that higher range, sounding female-like, sort of like Bad Omens or Beast in Black…just not as cool. Decent set though.
Wind Walkers was 2nd, and also the band I was most familiar with besides the headliner. Since I wasn’t familiar with Sace6, it was during Wind Walkers set where I started to notice that the sound mix wasn’t fantastic. The End Aesthetic was the 2nd song and it was recognizable, but hard to hear. This band is pretty vocally driven, yet I could barely hear the vocals. They weren’t muffled, but definitely drowned out by everything else going on. Still a decent set, but not what it could have been. Decided to take a video to see if the sound would pick up differently. Take a peek for yourself.
Northlane was next, and I gotta say, not a fan! Now perhaps it had more to do with the sound as the vocals were pretty much drowned out unless he was screaming. When screaming, you could hear the sound, but not the lyrics. At one point, before the music started, he told the crowd to “sing along if you know it” but it felt like the band wasn’t even sure what songs they were doing. None of it seemed to be the same song being played in several parts. The final song in their set was sort of recognizable, but without looking it up I woudn’t know what it was. Also, the singer’s clothing choice was super lame! But oh well.
Dayseeker was the draw, and they are another vocally driven band. The singer does highs, lows, clean, dirty, all in one. It’s a great range. The lyrics are also pretty “deep” at times. Written from real life experiences and pain. But once again, pretty hard to hear.
They opened with Pale Moonlight which is a great song but all I could hear was the drums (mostly the cymbals), bass and low vocals. If they were playing guitar, it could not be heard. In between this and the next song, when yelling to pump up the crowd, I couldn’t make out what was being said.
They did have to stop the 2nd song at one point for what I assume was a fight or some sort of drunken disorderly conduct. When stoppinig the song, the screen graphics and everything also stopped because it’s all synched up to computers for lighting and background sounds. When they restarted, I’m not even quite sure if it was the same song or if they skipped to the next one.
When they got to Shapeshift the sound seemed to be improving. Vocals increased a bit, all instruments audible, drums a bit more equalized so it wasn’t just a crasy of cymbals. Dreamstate was good, Crawl Back to My Coffin sound good, then Homesick followed. A few more songs played before they got to Crying While You’re Dancing and then they played a song that they’ve only played live twice, Nocturnal Remedy. When they got to The Living Dead it was pretty lame. Just the singer on a keyboard, mellow, lame, hard to hear lyrics, and keys just sounded like odd noises. By the time Creature in the Black Night came on, we thought it was again hard to hear the actual songs and it continued on when Sleeptalk started so we left…even though Neon Grave was the encore.
With the sound quality, and the flat general admission room, it wasn’t the most enjoyable show. Hard to hear, hard to see, no one watches the show because they’re busy walking back and forth 100 times to get more and more drinks, just made it one of the lesser enjoyed concert experiences. But it’s ok. None of that was really the bands’ fault. I have been to this venue before, though its usually the theater. The general admission “Dome” kinda sucks.
If you made it this far and caught this show or any others on the tour, I’d love to know your thoughts on the sound quality.
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