There have been a lot of killer tours of late, but few packed the variety and the punch of the bill accompanying Crowbar on their latest jaunt. Rather than take out a bunch of similar bands with an overlapping fanbase, the creators of this tour package took a bunch of cool bands that are all slightly different in genre and fandom make-up and sent them out to do something really unique. It definitely worked, because for a Tuesday night, the upstairs of the Palladium was fairly thick with heshers and heifers by the time my awesome photog for the night, Meg Loyal, and I rolled into the venue.

Armed For Apocalypse was already on when I got in, and they seemed to be going over well with the the early crowd. Apparently I also missed a slew of great local talent, which pissed me off. Promoters of shows: stop beginning before 7 PM on a weeknight (Tuesday) when most of your crowd is driving from 65 miles away or more during rush hour. Armed… meanwhile put on a killer show I wasn’t expecting this early. Their talents lay somewhere between a sludgy metal base with some grooves, death metal flair, and occasional flashes of technicality. They also had a gang-vocal-thing going on from most of their band that I liked too. We’ll be looking out for these guys again!

Fit For An Autopsy has been grinding it out live non-stop this year. They continue to pick up steam since adding Greg Wilburn to their ranks. The Palladium crowd also takes a fancy to this band they know very well from numerous shows and fests, and so the crowd was amped up and the pit was instantly activated. These guys always put on a killer performance and inspired the best, most violent pit action of the evening. There is just something about the way they carry themselves with confidence and the brutality of their style, I can really see them stepping up to the level of a Suicide Silence or a Whitechapel when their next album drops in 2015. You’ve been warned, don’t sleep on this band!

At the midway point of the night, I caught myself feeling very positive about the current scene, and that a tour like this can even happen and pass through our neck of the woods. Sentiment. I need to watch that! Meanwhile Havok came on and clearly had some of their own fanbase in the house, because their entire front of the stage was more or less a total circle pit for their set. A band that has hit the 10-year mark and also has a big following in our area, had a triumphant feeling hitting the stage and thrashing their balls off. Front man David Sanchez, like his entire band, has some sweet musical skills and has a shriek not unlike Mark Osegueda of Death Angel, who make a fair comparison for the band too. Special note goes to Marshall Wieczorek of Wretched, who was filling in for Pete Webber behind the kit did a great job. The band recently signed with Century Media and are also planning a new album for next year.

The Palladium, even the more intimate part of the venue upstairs, can be a clusterfuck on any given day. It was cool seeing a lot of my my local brethren of metal fans and friends at the show. It had been a very heavy week of shows in our surrounding area, with many national and local bands worth seeing. Still, I was impressed that by the time Revocation took the stage, the place was pretty full. Ans why not? Being a Boston band and playing this venue was practically a hometown show and many people in the house were sporting their Revocation shirts (a no-no to me, but good for the band I suppose). The anticipation was higher than usual, since the band has signed a new deal with Metal Blade and are on the cusp of dropping their new album Deathless. The band played a tight set with a mix of “hits” and new songs that left bodies sweaty on jaws on the floor. As usual, a lot of folks are just here for the guitar fireworks in the form of Dave Davidson and Dan Gargiulo. Their rhythm section was augmented tonight too, with Jon “The Charn” Rice (Scorpion Child, ex-Job For a Cowboy, The Red Chord) filling in for Phil DuBois (arm injury). Revocation is just one of those bands that wears many hats and pulls it off extremely well.

Heading back stage to interview Revocation, I was just wrapping up my chat when I heard the strains of the first few songs of Crowbar’s set. The went on pretty quick with little turnover apparently, but I didn’t miss much. The crowd was doing the “slow acknowledgment” head-bang to ‘Symmetry In White’ when I finally made it back downstairs. Kirk Windstein made a funny crack about turning all the lights off, then just relegating the rest of the night to a sparse spotlight, that was befitting of this workman-like band. As their set list shows Crowbar is as important to this genre as they relevant today, with a string of great songs and new material that holds up too. Kirk likes to slide to the side of the microphone when not singing, an unintentional but necessary move that puts him where he belongs, front and center. He has a solid group of guys behind him these days, but it makes him shine that much brighter.

About half-way through the set I realized this was about the best Crowbar show I’d ever seen. Kirk has raised his game up a few more levels than he was already at over the years and his laser focus on this band has definitely paid off. While a lot of people associate the band with ‘All I Had (I Gave)’, it was a song like ‘Planets Collide’ that really write the story of this band in granite. Kirk, his voice up to a mic and his hands around a guitar neck are a treasure to the metal community. I hope we get to enjoy them for a long time.

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Crowbar Set List:

Cemetary Angels

Walk With Knowledge Wisely

Symmetry in White

Self-Inflicted

Planets Collide

The Lasting Dose

Sever the Wicked Hand

Liquid Sky and Cold Black Earth

Conquering

High Rate Extinction

New Dawn

All I Had (I Gave)

I Have Failed

Crowbar on Facebook

Revocation on Facebook

Fit For An Autopsy on Facebook

Armed For Apocalypse on Facebook

WORDS: KEITH CHACHKES

PHOTOS: MEG LOYAL PHOTOGRAPHY