All words: Jeb Gavin — All photos: Kevin Hulse
I’m going to do my best to avoid giving you a mediocre review of what I felt was a decent concert. Mastodon and Opeth put on, for all intents and purposes, a metal show this past Wednesday night at the Fillmore in Silver Spring. Those of you who couldn’t care less about metal, this simply means ear-bleeding rock played fast while hundreds of black clad stoners stare at strobe lights. For metal fans, a double bill like Mastodon and Opeth is a Rorschach test: you see what you want to see, and can only mildly appreciate other people’s opinions.
Most metal shows come down to guys dressed in black standing around watching guys dressed in black playing loud music while strobe lights flash. I’m not sure what non-metal fans expect. Actually, I know what most non-metal fans expect, the same thing anyone expects looking in from the outside of a subculture: uniformity. You hear the same complaints from fans and detractors of electronic music. “I don’t get it; I’m not going to take the time to understand it; it all sounds the same–like crap.” Much as I’d love to spend several paragraphs grumping about the choices we make (and the ones we allow to be made for us), that would just be a further diversion.
Metal is weirdly specific to region and subgenre. More important, the fans are all fiercely protective of their individual flavor of metal, and quickly derisive of all other different varieties. While the average person might have a specific if stereotypical view of “metal” fans, the more you listen to the music and engage fans in conversation, the more you learn the rather stark differences between the subgenres and their respective fans.
In this case, many Opeth fans were openly dismissive of Mastodon. Opeth, hailing from Sweden, is a healthy combination of both black and death metal (NOT the same thing.) Mastodon is widely considered more sludge or stoner metal. Technically, black metal evolved into death metal, and both share similar elements of tremolo picking, hoarsely shouted vocals, pounding drums and sudden tempo changes. This is in contrast to sludge, a stoner metal variety most often found in the American South. While both sludge and black metal emanate from thrash metal, sludge is more akin to hardcore which is actually a kind of punk. Further, Mastodon and Opeth share progressive metal roots. Often progressive metal, the metal version of progressive rock, is ignored by almost all metal fans, since it simultaneously takes itself very seriously while retaining a sense of humor often alien to other kinds of metal. Progressive rock, the real source of many of metal’s most interesting drum work and tempo changes, is the ugly stepsister of metal.
Both Mastodon’s and Opeth’s music are heavily rooted in progressive music (their keyboardist is a big tipoff). And yet throughout the show, Mastodon fans looked slightly wary while Opeth played, and Opeth fans were disinterested in Mastodon for almost the same reasons. “Mastodon is prog punk!” “Opeth’s songs all sound the same!” Much as non-metal fans would like to believe it’s them against metal fans, really it’s just metal fans against other metal fans. Maybe the only thing metal fans like more than metal is complaining about all the metal they dislike. At least, that’s what I noticed most at their show.
wasn’t Ghost on this bill?
Dear BYT,
It is really a drag to see this article; especially since even the brief description of both band’s musical roots was plagued by chronological errors, to further dive into this aspect is only a diversion.
Metal is not divisive (i.e. Wacken festival, MD Death Fest, France’s Hellfest etc etc) Yes both of these bands have very different fans and very different styles of music, but to say “metal shows come down to guys dressed in black standing around watching guys dressed in black playing loud music while strobe lights flash” is extremely ignorant and frankly offensive.
Offensive to the artists putting on the show and working hard on their craft; getting up there to perform extremely complex -progressive pieces of music, and to us! the fans who enjoy the challenge of exposing ourselves to something other than what we personally enjoy, the fans who seek to broaden our own musical horizons and reject “cookie cutter” music/whatever crap mainstream dictates is cool and popular (i.e. Electronic music today)
In fact, this article does not even mention the 3rd band on this bill, Ghost, which does not sound anything like Mastodon or Opeth! Next time you publish an article on a genre of music, or show you’re not interested in, please do not knock it down and dismiss it outwardly like that…this show was full of people who braved a Wednesday night to come enjoy honest music, played honestly.
“Maybe the only thing metal fans like more than metal is complaining about all the metal they dislike” no dear BYT, the only metal fans that complain about going to see a metal show are not true fans.
don’t even bother reviewing a show like this. this isn’t even a review. if it’s such a chore to find a qualified writer, fill this space with another sycophantic review of a Best Coast or M83 show, or some other bland act for bros and hoes who are “too cool” for the usual bro/hoe music.
really disappointing that someone would write an honest point-and-laugh Creed review and pretend it’s not a point-and-laugh review (no one even pretends to care enough to mock Creed anymore — come on) and then proceed to more or less ignore this show. because it wasn’t in DC-proper?
Can we at least admit that the pairing of such bands was a little bizarre, however good friends the two allegedly are and I’m little bummed that nothing was said about Ghost.
Mastodon was tight and fantastic, maybe not quite as fierce as the 930 Club show, but the crowd was lacking in spirit. Opeth seemed to garner a much greater response. Jeb is right though, I walked around the venue during the sets and there were more than a few conversations bashing Mastodon and even bashing Opeth (mostly for latter-era albums). This is to say nothing of the drunken cocksucker behind me SHOUTING a conversation to his buddies through Opeth’s set. Anyway, we don’t cover a lot of metal on this site, but we’re working on that.
To say that fans congregating at a metal festival discounts the claim that genre-fidelity hasn’t crippled parts of the scene, is pure hogwash. Metal fans are fiercely loyal and protective, even when you try and heap praise as an outsider and move outside BYT’s usual scene (http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/articles/livedc-ghost-rnr-hotel.htm) Props to Laughing and Juan C for actually reading/responding to this article and not using it as a point of self-promotion…like I just did, and Metal Chris before me.
Dear Robert,
I agree that the pairing of these two bands was a bit unusual, I’m mostly a Mastodon fan so it was a relief to see my band w/out getting shoved around all over the place, and believe you me I love shoving around at metal shows.
What prompted my disgust with this ‘review’ was the lack of insight and objective criticism the author lacked; I heard and talked to people who had those same conplaints: “oh Mastodon played all their slow stuff” “I came here to rock and Opeth isn’t rocking”… and the best one in my opinion “listen, if you want to bang your head, then do it over there –>”
But you see? that mixed audience is the beauty of the metal scene in our fair DC, how a bunch of “asshole” bros and yuppie “angry-broads” (who want you to head-bang over there, –> mind you) can co-exist and come together w/out having to answer the question: “so what do you do for a living?” Beautiful that those two completely different and often socially-segregated groups can come together for music, art and performance.
It might not have been DC’s cup-of tea, and clearly not the authors favorite gig (he made sure we understood that) but at least, please present it for what it is. Yknow? Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it