Five Finger Death Punch: Live Review

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

January 21st 2010, House Of Blues, Anaheim CA: The place was packed despite it being a cold and rainy day in Los Angeles. The main reason I thought was that the first 100 girls were let in for free, in this show that is part of a tour called 'Money For Nothing/Chicks For Free'! Now that's an interesting strategy and I can safely say that it was very successful.

I got there at around 8 and found out that the show started earlier than scheduled and the first band 2 Cents had already finished their set. From what I gathered talking to fellow photographers, I did not miss much.

The next band to hit the stage was God Forbid. I was impressed with their latest album 'Earthsblood' which released early last year, and liked their effort opening for Lamb Of God back in April at the Palladium. They kept up to my expectations this time round as well. Byron Davis proved to be a very good frontman and brought the best out of the fans. It was also nice to see guitarist Doc Coyle lay down some tight riffs. I was eager to see how he performs as part of an opening band again, specially after the Metallica incident last year, something which I think should not have happened to him at all. He and his band mates did justice to the short allotted time they had. They played two new songs, three from the Constitution of Treason album and 'Force-Fed' from Gone Forever.

Here's their complete set list:

The End Of The World
Under This Flag
War Of Attrition
Empire Of The Gun
Force-Fed
To The Fallen Hero

Shadows Fall started their set at 9.15 with the opening track of their latest album, the song 'My Demise'. Three more songs from the same album were played during the course of their show, 'Still I Rise' which was my favorite song of the set, 'King Nothing' and 'A Public Execution'. They also included a few songs from two of their highest charting albums War Within and Art Of Balance. The crowd were starting to really get into this show and there were mosh pits, head bangers and crowd surfers in plenty. Vocalist Brian Fair got the crowd to shout 'Fuck It All' before and during 'A Public Execution'.

They did have something for the old school fans as well, an Ozzy cover. It wasn't the best cover I have ever seen nor was the crowd response justified for a song like 'Bark At The Moon', but at least it was a chance for people like me to get an 80s throwback in an otherwise 'metalcore' laden night. My only problem with the cover was the vocals. Everything else was done well. In complete contrast to this cover, Brian started shouting the words 'Shadows fuckin god damn fall' and urged the crowd to accompany him in this rap-style chant, which wasn't my thing at all. So I personally couldn't really appreciate their performance much even though the crowd seemingly enjoyed themselves a lot. The band members did well on stage, specially Jason Bittner on drums. One thing I couldn't help but wonder was about Brian Fair. I met him at NAMM very recently. He is a nice guy and a good vocalist, but what's up with that hairstyle?

Here's their complete set list:

My Demise
Thoughts Without Words
Still I Rise
What Drives the Weak
King of Nothing
Inspiration on Demand
A Public Execution
Bark At The Moon (Ozzy cover)
The Light That Blinds

The headliners Five Finger Death Punch had a pretty awesome stage I have to say. They had machine gun cannons as stage props and the drums were outlined with bullet belts. The microphone stand for the centre vocals was epic in itself. It was definitely one of the coolest I have ever seen and it would give Korn's Jonathan Davis's mic stand a run for its money. They opened with 'Burn It Down' from the latest album. The set list had songs perfectly distributed between their first album and the second one, having six songs from each. Vocalist Ivan Moody was running all around the stage, throwing out open water bottles into the crowd and trying everything to get them pumped up. I would say he succeeded to a large extent as almost everyone was jumping up and down whenever he told them to do so.

Most of the 'first 100' women present for the show were drunk and wild during the whole of this show, more so during Five Finger Death Punch. At least that's how it was around where I was standing, at the bar near stage left. People inside the pit started losing control as well and fights started to break out. The house of blues security personnel certainly had a busy time of it tonight. Musically, the band seemed to do well for their fans who were equivocal in their support, screaming 'Five Finger .. Death Punch' plenty of times. The Bad Company cover was interesting, coming from a mainstream modern metal band. Jason and Bathory did their job well on guitars as did Matt on bass. Jeremy Spencer's drumming was one of the highlights of their show for me. All in all, a fun night for everyone!

Here's their complete set list:

Burn It Down
Salvation
The Way of the Fist
Hard to See
No One Gets Left Behind
Bulletproof
Bad Company (Bad Company cover)
White Knuckles
Never Enough
Dying Breed
Meet the Monster
The Bleeding

Check out these bands here:
Five Finger Death Punch
Shadows Fall
God Forbid

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