The Sword with Torche (and others)

The Sword
w/Torche, Seamless, AKG and Tarantula AD
The Living Room, Providence RI
Saturday April 8, 2006

File this under you win some and you lose some.

When this show was first announced and up until show time Miami band Torche was listed as the headliner. That didn't phase me much since i wanted to see the sword more and an early set meant earlier for me to see a band and head home. 5 bands, doors at 8 show at 9...fair enough.

I arrived to the club at about 20 after 10 and the band AKG was saying there "hello's". Oh crap..just now?! Sure enough stuff was running late and this was only the second band to hit the stage. Its gonna be a long night.

The good news is KP was there so we could at least rock out, drink a beer and chat between bands. KP is a good concert partner. He doesn't talk at all during the bands playing (granted its too loud) but he takes it all in and flat out likes being at a rock show. I think the only thing I asked him was during the band Seamless if they were "really freaking loud". KP gave the look and nod. The trickle of blood coming from his ears should have told me. (i kid).

AKG was okay. KP liked them more than I. Seamless was next and they had a "lead singer". Uggh. He just screamed his flipping head off. It was getting late and it could not have ended sooner IMO.

Torche was up next..but it was getting to be midnight. Ears hurt as well as legs (and bladder). I was not familiar w/Torche at all until Friday afternoon when I checked out their myspace page. I liked the 3 songs they had posted and noted they were going to be coming back to Boston to open for Mogwai. I love me some good instrumental heavy stuff. The band was not out and out bad, but a very muddy mix made me somewhat ehh on them. I wanted to grab their cd before the show started but by the end I ended up saving my money. KP saw a member of the band Cave In and chatted w/him for a moment. Cave In had played with Torche in TN and the guy said that Torche just blew them away. I said to KP later that I thought Torche was a better studio sounding band. Oh well.

Finally around 1am The Sword took the stage. One of the nice parts of this long night was the fact the bands turned over the stage in about 15 minutes. 1am is just flat out Effing late. After a quick hello the band launched into it and all was forgiven. I am pretty new to the band but was a big believer after the first tune. The bands sound is a mix between Black Sabbath and Queens of the Stone Age first record. Its heavy, its swampy its noisy as hell, and it flat out rocks. I wanted to see the bricks start falling off the wall and the ceiling come down. The band was firing on all cylinders. Sometimes its amazing how four people can make that much noise, but it was "structured". The vocals were a little buried in them mix but the absolute riffage just won me over. My head bobbed, my arms swayed and in a mere 40 minutes I felt I had seen and heard something special. Rolling Stone had them listed as one of the 10 bands to watch in 2006 and reports from the South By Southwest Festival had them as one of the top 10 live sets. I could be on to something.

Barring the late night why do people still think moshing is cool? I am all for having music move you but being a complete idiot saddens me. Jump up and down, sing along, pump your fist, air jam..whatever..just running in a circle and shadowboxing fueled on 6.00 domestic beers??! come on..

If the band gets on the right tour, or gets some bigger distribution deal I see them getting to only be bigger. They won me over and I'll be seeing them again.