Kid Future
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Light Pines
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Photographs taken by WKNC photographer Katie Hill
Kid Future
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
The Light Pines
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I’m putting off my review of Borknagar’s latest album until next week, as the Cannibal Corpse concert at Volume 11 yesterday was total face-smashing. The pure brutal assault of the Lecherous Nocturne, Diabolic, Skeletonwitch, and Cannibal Corpse lineup left my neck hanging by a string, my eye bruised from crowd surfers, my ears ringing from pure shredding, and my mind liquefying with an excellent show.
Lecherous Nocturne started off the night with some great grinding, the kind of teeth-on-chalkboard sensation that makes you realize the only thing you can do is keep on knocking your head against the stage floor in rhythm. At one point the band offered the most dominant person in a pit a copy of their latest album. I watched as fellow metalhead bashed into more metalheads, listening to the soothing sound of bone hitting bone and the growls of encouragement. They were good at turning model citizens into flying guided missiles.
It’s sad that 1349 is stuck in Europe due to some visa issues, but Diabolic was a solid substitute that did not leave me wanting to kick a door with a toothpick under my toenail, which is how I usually handle things that are not brütal enough. The old school sound was perfect for preparing us for the maggots feasting on our guts that would be disemboweled by Cannibal Corpse’s earlier works.
Skeletonwitch hit the stage, and the crowd went bloodthirsty. People were squeezed so close to the stage that their eyes burst into white liquid, causing them to jump on stage and then back into the crowd. It seemed to rain frenzied metalheads, putting shoes into people’s noses with a bloody cracking sound and knees thudding against unlucky crowd members’ thick skulls. People ravaged so much in the Skeletonwitch set that people spontaneously combusted into bloody chunks. Some people may have helped themselves to a mid show snack.
In the end, though, it was Cannibal Corpse that devoured the crowd. They played songs from albums across the entire timeline. the exact order is a blur since that part of my brain got lobotomized at some point in the show, but I remember them starting with Scalding Hail. From that point on the brütality pulverized my legs, neck, and brain. Priests of Sodom, The Wretched Spawn, Evisceration Plague, They Deserve To Die all brought on the horns. They ended with a personal favorite of mine: Stripped, Raped and Strangled. I left the concert fully satisfied and limbless, earless, eyeless, with the stench of a thousand decomposing fellow fans around me. I think that my arms fought off their chainsaw of a grinding gory song, with my arms losing. My legs still seem to be MIA, though I don’t think I’ll need them anytime soon.
With that, I leave you more images of the concert!
by Travis Hargett
Since taking over one of the local lunch shows with DJ Megan, Roman Candle has become a weekly favorite. I’m not sure there’s a song on Oh Tall Tree in the Ear that we haven’t played at least once, so when i saw the DJ pass for the show at the Cat’s Cradle last week, I snagged it.
Unfortunately we didn’t make it for either of the openers (The Parson Red Heads and Ravenna Colt), but the Roman Candle set was great. After months of listening to a bands cd it’s always great to hear them live. When we walked in they had just kicked it off with “That’s why modern radio is A-OK”… it’s probably their most popular and it was pretty good live. The next two songs “A heartbeat” and “Sonnet 46” were both backed up with some guys from The Old Ceremony. Other than that, they played through most of Oh Tall Tree in the Ear and it sounded like they played some older stuff I wasn’t too familiar with. Best of all, it was over by 11:40 p.m. – gotta love a weekday show.
If you weren’t able to make it to Harris Field last Friday, then you missed out. In retrospect, the phrase “weather permitting” would have been grossly inappropriate. (Well, the main reason for this is that had the weather been iffy, the show would have moved to the Wolves’ Den, but what I mean to say is that the weather was as close to perfect as it gets.)
Chapel Hill trio Aminal took the stage first, a little after 6:30. Just as expected, they proved true to form and lit the place up, and gained a couple hundred fans in the process. Raleigh quintet Bright Young Things (who, by way of interest, features three NC State grads) finished the night off in grand fashion to an appreciative crowd and a pretty sweet sunset.
This show was the fourth installment of what will hopefully be a long line of many free on-campus concerts presented by the NC State Union Activities Board, the Inter Residence Council, and WKNC.
All photos were taken by Technician photographer Jordan Moore.
This past Thursday, Cat’s Cradle was hosted two international bands, bringing in a large crowd.
The Kissaway Trail, a five-piece band from Denmark, started off the night. They made an effort to involve the crowd, especially in songs such as “SDP,” which is available for free download on Facebook. The band is set to release its album, “Sleep Mountain,” on April 20.
Austrailian band The Temper Trap- followed their set with a musical-like performance. Each song flowed right into the next, including favorites like “Fools,” “Down River,” and of course, “Sweet Disposition.”
The highlight of the performance was “Drum Song.” The band jammed out and danced around, as did the crowd. Dougie, the vocalist, poured water on a floor tom and whailed out on it. With the changing lights behind him, it created an awesome visual to finish off the song.
The band finished off the night with an encore performance of “Science of Fear,” featured on the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack.
This past Thursday, two amazing bands teamed up for a night of sheer entertainment in downtown Raleigh.
Sol Driven Train, a band from South Carolina opened up the evening on a rather unexpected tone – it appeared to be ska. Yes, there was a trombone and a baritone sax, and both had very talented musicians attached to them! I had wondered where ska had disappeared to in the past decade or so and was pleased to hear something familiar, but then the next song came and then the next… It was ska, then blues, then Johny Carter-esque country, then something with a Latin feel, and the set finished with a near-ten-minute percussion finale in which every member of the band took to a drum for an all out battle of the beats. I was utterly blown away. How could the night have possibly gotten any better?
I have four words for you – Holy Ghost Tent Revival. Imagine if you can for a moment ragtime, bluegrass, and indie rock having a private party in a French Quarter hotel while your grandma’s gospel choir watched in horror through the keyhole. The music makes you want to dance and sing, hands over your head, heels kicked up, shoes off without caring who sees. Actually, if you were there, you might’ve seen me, but that’s beside the point – It seemed as if the walls actually pulsed with the banging rhythms of the banjo and the wailing combination of the horns and the harmonized vocals made the glass in the windows tremble. New songs were on hand, and it’s clear that not only is the Greensboro-based group gaining melodic momentum, their writing is more interesting and creative than ever.
I was already a fan of Holy Ghost Tent Revival, and I think I become an even bigger fan each time I see them. They’re certainly an act not to be missed, and I was fortunate enough this time to catch them with an opening act who certainly held their own.
Last Year’s Men
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The Temperance League
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Major Lazer’s North Carolina tour stop this past Tuesday at Cat’s Cradle proved to be one sweaty, non-stop dance party.
Sleigh Bells opened the show with a mix of loud, distorted guitar, blasted beats, and the yelping, chanting vocals of singer Alexis Krauss. The duo did a fine job warming up the crowd for what was to be a night of non-stop dancing and mayhem. They played a mix of blog favorites including as “A/B Machines” and “Crown on the Ground” and new tracks likely to appear on their debut album due out later this year.
Immediately after Sleigh Bells closed out their set, British dubstep artist Rusko took the stage to the sounds of a bass-maxed-out version of Petey Pablo’s “Raise Up”. From there, he cruised through crowd-pleasing remixes of Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘n’ Nite” and Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek”, in addition to original tracks such as “Woo Boost” and the Tupac-sampling “Da Cali Anthem”.
Following a brief intermission at the end of Rusko’s set, Major Lazer main men Diplo and Switch took to a table of CDJ’s and laptops at the back of the stage. The lazer lights came on and the party wouldn’t let up for another hour-plus. With hype-man/MC Skerrit Bwoy bouncing around the stage in his colorful mohawk and a bikini-clad dancer pulling moves that looked like something a gymnast might do in a strip club, the crowd went absolutely insane. People were bouncing. People were dancing. The whole crowd was swaying. Foam lazer-guns were thrown into the crowd. As the duo mixed their way effortlessly from Major Lazer hits “Pon De Floor” and “Keep It Goin’ Louder” into tracks they’ve produced individually, Skerrit Bwoy and the dancer took to pulling off moves straight out of the “Pon De Floor” video (warning: NSFW). The chemistry between the two was obvious, both wearing ear-to-ear grins the entire time.
I had heard that the show was supposed to run until 2 a.m., but was cut short after a guy fell and busted his head open , which was evident due to the pool of blood near the back of the room. Regardless of whether or not the show was supposed to go on for another two hours or not, Major Lazer brought what is likely to be one of the best-remembered dance parties the Cradle has ever seen.