Mega Monsters Invade Houston

The self proclaimed “Whale-core” titans Gojira and Mastodon, with special guest Lorna Shore, played to a packed house during Friday night’s thunderstorms.  New Jersey’s Lorna Shore kicked things off to a surprisingly nearly packed floor at 7pm.  The crowd so far was made up of mainly younger fans, with curious onlookers like myself. They are currently one of the more talked about bands in the scene, thanks in part to vocalist Will Ramos. Ramos vocals are very impressive live, hitting ridiculous highs and lows that could rival Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitation. Lorna shore are a very tight extreme deathcore band live, but such technical music makes it harder to interact with a crowd. It’s hard to headbang when you must focus on your instrument. Houston showed enough love for their short six song set that Ramos let us know we were “…definitely better than Dallas.” 

After a 25 minute set change, Mastodon was next.  During the set change the floor became much more crowded. It had five years since I had last seen Mastodon, and with a few album releases since then, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Their sixteen song set kicked off with a great 1-2 punch from Blood Mountain with “The Wolf is Loose” and “Crystal Skull.”  To my surprise the normally four piece band added a fifth member to perform with them at live shows: João Nogueira was handling keyboards. The keyboardist, and drummer, Brann Dailor, were up higher on top of LED screen risers, with a wall of LED screens and pyro throughout the set. Quite the fancy upgrade.

 Guitarist Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher stayed and rocked away on their respective sides of the stage, while Bassist Troy Sanders seemed to have danced all around. He is one of the more unique musicians live, someone that you can tell really feels and enjoys playing music live. Their impressive sixteen song set covered six of their eight albums, leaving out The Hunter and Once More Round the Sun.

Brann closed out the set by telling the crowd – “Houston we have a problem…you’ve never heard that? C’mon, it’s in all the movies about space, and you know…well you guys don’t have a problem do ya? That guy does (points to an audience member) that’s just him though. Thats not indicative of everyone in Houston, that’s just one guy, don’t worry about it”

Closing out the rainy night and next was France’s Gojira. Even though this tour is co headlining, there seemed to be this feeling that many fans were here for more so for Gojira. At this point there were many families in attendance, with many children no doubt seeing their first concert.  By the time a three-minute countdown appeared on the screen, the floor was nearly full with the crowd inching forward in anticipation. Gojira opened off their set with their opening track from Fortitude, “Born for One Thing” and then directly into “Backbone.”  From my point of view, I counted at least 3 mosh pits going at once, organized chaos. I looked back at my friend to see a blank face, a familiar look a saw throughout the crowd. He was simply amazed. 

Their thirteen song setlist featured staples such as “Flying Whales,” where drummer Mario Duplantier threw out what seemed like an endless amount of drumsticks.  The set ended with “The Gift of Guilt” where the band showed off many firsts in their biggest Houston show to date including -confetti, streamers, rain sparklers, LED screens, c02 cannons, and of course good ole fashioned pyro. “Thank you for showing up an supporting us, without you, we don’t exist.”

Notes:

• First time I’ve ever seen someone wear heels to see Gojira
• Will Ramos kinda sounds like Randy Blythe between songs 
• Stand out band shirt of the night – Y&T + zubaz zebra pants
• It apparently started pouring rain at some point, seems fitting given the tour name
• After Gojira, hearing someone say “he’s so sexy” about one of the band members
• Post show, Killers were playing in the lobby, not many people singing…wrong crowd
• While waiting for an uber, a younger guy running with his friends, was yelling “GOJIRA FUCKS”

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Joseph Acosta

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