Nonpoint: Live Review

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

April 3rd 2010, The Roxy, Hollywood CA: A good crowd had gathered tonight at the Roxy for this show featuring two Florida alternative rock acts Nonpoint and Cold. I kind of expected that on a Saturday night. The numbers went up even more by the time Nonpoint were ready to hit the stage.

They opened with the song 'Broken Bones' from the Recoil album. It was a heavy start to the set from them and the crowd got into it straight away. This song definitely packs a lot of punch and does so even more when the guys bring it out in shows. Many of the fans in the crowd joined in on the chorus as well. After this great warm-up, they played 'What A Day' from one of their early albums Statement. It was a lot different from the opening song as it has soft and heavy parts arranged very well together. This created an interesting effect in a live setting. Most definitely a great choice for this set I would say!

Things took more of a 'nu metal' turn with the next song 'The Wreckoning'. I think by playing this song the band wanted to show the variety in their music over the years and the fact that they are not afraid to experiment and push genre boundaries. Some bands do their one-off experiment and never play it live. It certainly wasn't the case with Nonpoint here, as they represented pretty much their entire catalog in this shortish set. It was time for them to bring out a new song from the yet unreleased album 'Miracle', the song named 'What You've Got For Me'. Now most of the people present at the show would have heard this song for the first time, and from their reaction I could tell that they liked what they were hearing. I thought the song was heavy and the riffs sounded tight to say the least. They went back to the Development album to bring out 'Circles' next. It was a much slower but equally enjoyable song. It gave me the sort of feel that Pantera's Cemetery Gates would do if I had ever gotten to see that band perform it live. I would have liked to see them play their cover of Pantera's '5 Minutes Alone', a track which is on the Miracle album.

It was almost like they had decided to make the middle portion of the set 'groovy'. This continued with the following song 'Hands Off'. This was probably the heaviest song in their set tonight and they made it sound even heavier than the studio version. The title track off of the Miracle album was next, and again it was a display of how good this upcoming album of theirs promises to be for the fans. Frontman Elias was really energetic with his performance tonight and so were his band mates. He got the crowd to clap along to introduce the next song 'Rabia' and his vocals went straight into overdrive after that. He was jumping up and down all around the small stage at the Roxy.

The beautiful intro to 'In The Air' was up next for this hugely grateful Hollywood crowd. It was a very interesting diversion from the rest of the set and definitely put a pause to the groovy section as I've called it, for one song at least. The last song of their set was 'Bullet With A Name'. It was a slow and heavy end to the night. I was expecting something faster but nonetheless, it was enjoyed by one and all present at the Roxy.

All in all, a great live performance by Nonpoint tonight and their fans would definitely agree that they got what they came to see, while also getting a taste of what the next album sounds like. Thank you Nonpoint!

Broken Bones
What A Day
The Wreckoning
What You've Got For Me
Circles
Hands Off
Miracle
Rabia
In The Air
Bullet With A Name

Check out the band's official website.

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