"Mayhem In Toronto"

Show: August 8, 2008 @ Downsview Park, Toronto, ON.
I feel the need to preface this review by saying that I know very little about pretty much all the bands here except for underOath, so my review will largely be based off the performances I saw while I was there.

Opening up the day was California death core band Suicide Silence; heavily tattooed front man Mitch Lucker dominated the stage, while the other members thrashed about the stage. The band continually tried to engage with the crowd with surprising success considering they were the first band of the day, getting the band to raise their fists in the air along with the music.

Up next on the stage beside them was Walls Of Jericho, leaning more towards metalcore than the last band, with female front woman Candace Kucsulain spending most of her time screaming from the edge of the stage. They had impressive presence and like many of the other openers for this show had the advantage of the main stage not being active for a few hours.

Coming up after them was The Black Tide which is made up of surprisingly young members but still managed to command the stage. They were immediately followed by Five Finger Death Punch, who apart from all being fantastic performers also engaged the crowd immensely, singer Ivan Moody even pulling out a squirt gun to soak the crowd after a few songs.

The Red Chord followed and put on an entertaining show, at one point splitting the crowd up to do a wall of death, where the crowd splits, and then runs towards each other. Following them was Airbourne, who were one of the more impressive bands of the day. The Australian band heavily channelled AC/DC into their extremely active performance, with front man Joel O'Keeffe launching himself about the stage in true rockstar fashion.

The next band on the small stages was 36 Crazyfists who despite being slightly underwhelming still managed to get some excitement out of the crowd when front man Brock Lindow launched himself off the stage and onto the crowd. Finally attention began turning to the main stage where heavy metal group Mastodon kicked off the stage with a bang, front man Troy Sanders proved that metal didn't have to be all serious as he constantly engaged the audience by making faces between vocals. Mastodons were a real treat to see and had incredible presence.

underOath was the last band to play the Hot Topic side stage, and opening with a strong rendition of 'In Regards to Myself' launched into their set. underOath certainly don't seem to fit the bill on this tour and while there were some hecklers in the crowd the band did not seem phased. Front man Spencer Chamberlain spent most of the set at the front of the stage engaging the audience. The last band on the opposite small stage was Machine Head, who drew a massive crowd and despite delays certainly seemed to deliver on what everyone was expecting from them.

After this it was back to the main stage for the rest of the night, the next band up was recent superstars DragonForce, who based largely off of their incredibly challenging song on Guitar Hero. Despite being completely different visually than you'd expect, a bunch of nerdy British guys rather than the stout bearded fellows you'd expect from this music. They certainly delivered on all expectations, especially when they launched into their hit song 'Through the Fire and the Flames'. They were followed by Disturbed, who despite being fan favourites came off as extremely repetitive and exploitive of the high levels of angst coming from the audience. Singer David Draiman was the least charismatic front man of the day and the other members didn't do much to compensate, they closed with their big hit "Down with the Sickness" which was eaten up by the audience.

Then came time for Slipknot, as the stage was set up people were getting amped up for the show, and the smaller members of the audience were already being pulled out of the audience. When the band hit the stage it was possibly one of the most bizarre sights of my life, a macabre cabaret that didn't stop. All the members were clad in their masks of varying elaborateness and with the energy coming off stage you got the sense that a lot of anger was found below them. In fact the unfocused rage could be felt coming from all directions, this was a crowd that identified with these masked monsters and needed this to get it all out. While the songs all blended together for me, and the performance, while impressive remained slightly unsettling, by the time they had finished the crowd was as fulfilled as they could be, and while it was a short set, this is a band that can pack a lot in to an hour.