Last weekend I was lucky enough to be back in NYC for my spring break (even though the first week of March is clearly not spring), and was able to catch the Kreator, Voivod, Nachmystium, Evile, and Lazarus A.D. show. Considering that it had been a little while since I have been pushed up against someone bigger and sweatier than I am, I was pretty geeked.

While I was at the show it dawned on me that, unlike in most sports, there aren’t statistics that tell you how well a band performed. Soccer has the a similar problem, which they solve by giving each player a 1 – 10 ranking based on their overall performance. So in honor of the upcoming world cup and my brother, who both despises metal and introduced me to soccer, I give you the band ratings for the Kreator show in soccer style.

Lazarus A.D. – 5.0
About half an hour before doors were supposed to open I went to my friend’s place to pre-game for the show. Since he lived a couple blocks away from the venue we figured we had some time to get in a round of COD (that’s Call of Duty for you non-nerds). Lets just say our timing was off and we arrived just as their set came to a close. Shame on us. But I did hear good things about their performance.

Evile – 7.5
Going into the show, I had never even heard of Evile. Coming out of the show, I know exactly who Evile is. Not that there is anything special about the music the band plays, but they performed the duties of opener to the tee. The band played with such intensity that that the crowd was already moshing their asses off.

Nachtmystium – 6.5
If one band were to get the short straw in this review, it would have to be Nachtmystium – but that is through no fault of their own. As was evident from the amount of people who showed up to see Evile, New York came to thrash hard. However, Nachtmystium was not thrash enough to get the crowd moving. The band played a great set and sounded fantastic, but the crowd just wasn’t into it, probably saving their energy for what was to come.

Voivod – 10.0
Wow. I had heard about how different Voivod was from other bands, but those claims can’t do the band justice in a live setting. For starters, Voivod was the best sounding and sharpest band throughout the night. The band played through old and new material and the crowd just ate it up. Snake commanded the stage with the presence of the psychotic madman. He was so in-the-zone that he shrugged off not one, but two liquid projectiles from the crowd. It was clear that there was nothing that could force that man to leave the stage. Guitarist Dan Mongrain hit every note. Piggy would have been proud. It’s a shame they weren’t the headliners, because the crowd just wanted more and more.

Kreator – 8.5
While people blew their load during Voivod’s set, most were ready for round two by the time Kreator took the stage. Kreator did what Kreator does best, play no-nonsense thrash. As soon as Kreator hit the stage the pit opened up and did not stop. It was nice to see a traditional push-and-shove kind of pit instead of the limb flailing, running in place shit that the deathcore kids pull. One odd thing about the set was that the band placed the smoke machine right in front of bassist Christian “Speesy” Giesler, so that he could barely be seen. I didn’t quite understand the decision. All in all the set was good. The band ripped through old and new material. But no matter how much I fought it I just seemed to get bored at the end. I wasn’t sure if I had already had my fill of thrash for the night or the fact that I was dehydrated after refusing to pay $3 for a fun size bottle of water.

Crowd – 10.0
As I said before, New York came to bang their heads. I love going to shows in New York because the venues will actually fill up for non-elite bands. NY metalheads, young and old, showed up to see the openers. Throughout the night ,the crowd tore the Nokia Theater apart, and I’m glad I was there to witness it.

-MH