Sevendust at the House of Blues Anaheim Last Night


Sevendust

October 31, 2010
House of Blues Anaheim

Trick or treat? Sevendust definitely provided a treat to the faithful fans at the House of Blues Anaheim on Halloween night. Billed as the “Hard Drive” tour, Sevendust brought along 10 Years, Since October and Anew Revoultion for a full evening of bludgeoning metal. While a few members of the audience dressed up, Sevendust outdid everyone by all dressing up as Elvis.

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The initial shock of seeing the members of
Sevendust dressed as Elvis seemed to last the entire duration of the
crushing riffs of “Splinter.” Guitarist Clint Lowery was rocking out so
hard he lost his Elvis sunglasses in the middle of the song yet scooped
them up and placed them back on without missing a beat. A crushing
version of “Denial” was nearly comical as Lajon Witherspoon really
seemed to be enjoying his Elvis Jumpsuit while barking out the lyrics.

Grins were everywhere when Witherspoon announced it was the first time the
band has dressed up for Halloween since 1998. Bassist Vincent Hornsby
took the unofficial role of hype man by running back and forth and
handing out drum sticks like they were candy to the crowd. The
deceptively quiet phased guitars soon gave way to the bulldozing riff
of “Waffle” which mined extra anger due to the screamed vocals of
drummer Morgan Rose.

Dipping into their latest album Cold Day Memory,
“Forever” had Lowery take a small turn on vocals while everyone in the
band was on background vocal harmonies displaying their penchant for
writing catchy melodic songs. The comedy didn't stop during “Black” as
their guitar tech dressed as Batman grabbed Lowery's guitar and did an
impressive job of nailing the razor sharp rhythms and tricky guitar
solo.

“Pieces” was another guitar driven assault with John
Connolly engaging his Digitech whammy pedal for some screaming pitch
shifted mutated notes. Since it was the end of the tour for the opening
band Since October, they proceeded to crash the stage dressed up as
members of Sevendust which generated a few laughs between everyone.
“Face To Face” ended their main set that had all the members take a
bow. The evening definitely was a treat for everyone including those in
the band.


While packaged metal shows can often be a mixed bag,
every opening band fared very well in engaging the audience. Anew
Revolution won points as their lead singer successfully crowd surfed
into the middle of the pit. Since October nicely pointed out that were
reminded of being home in Florida after seeing Mickey Mouse earlier in
the day. 10 Years had their contingency of fans cheering their high
energy melodic metal.

Personal Bias: Connolly and Lowery are one of my favorite guitar tandems.

Crowd: Dressed up in various costumes. My favorite was the guy dressed up as Radioactive Man.

Overheard in the Crowd: “Alfred are you out there?” was spoken by the Batman attired roadie.

Random Notebook Dump: The other roadies were dressed as Robin, Captain America, and Spiderman.

Setlist:
“Splinter”
“Denial”
“Enemy”
“Strong Arm Broken”
“Waffle”
“Suffocate”
“Forever Dead”
“Black”
“Driven”
“Unraveling”
“Pieces”
“Praise”
“Face To Face”

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