Dethklok @ Fillmore Auditorium (Denver)

Dethklok
10.10.09
Fillmore Auditorium
with Mastodon, Converge and High on Fire

It was cold as hell in Denver on Oct. 10. A freak (but increasingly more common) weather pattern of cold and snow hit Denver that morning and completely threw off the Dethklok, Mastodon, Converge and High On Fire tour’s scheduling. There’s something about bands making the trek between Utah and Colorado that causes strange Bermuda Triangle effects through Wyoming. Maybe that’s why no one plays there.   Consequently, the bands got into town late, making it a small miracle that the show got off the ground relatively on time. Kids were lined up outside the Fillmore Auditorium starting in the early afternoon, braving the cold to get a piece of the cartoon-turned-live-show, that was still kind of a cartoon, of Dethklok. Unfortunately, because of the long line that stretched all the way around the block, we only saw the final two songs of High on Fire’s set. Way to open the doors 20 minutes before showtime, Fillmore—especially with 1000+ people in line.

Surely the gamers and Adult Swim fans in line could’ve cared less about High on Fire, but those who like them know they are the rare breed of band that can unite metal, indie and hardcore fans alike. The two-ish songs I caught were heavy, rockin’ and everything you’d expect from High on Fire. It was nice to see that there was at least a decent sized crowd up front to watch them. 

Converge occupied the next slot on the show. Converge holds a place on my list of top five favorite bands, so I was curious to see how the large auditorium would pan out for their usually intimate and chaotic shows. This was something I spoke to guitar wizard Kurt Ballou about during my interview prior to the show and his opinion was that fast music like theirs wasn’t well suited to a room that large, but that it was great to be able to be out and play in front of a crowd that size. A place like the Fillmore may not be suited to fast music like theirs, but an advantage to experiencing them in that setting is hearing them through a worthy PA. The problem with small clubs is that the sound system can rarely keep up with the magnitude of their sound. 

To start, Kurt Ballou walked out solo on the Fillmore’s huge stage and launched into the beginning of opener “Plagues.” Immediately you could tell who had heard of Converge and who hadn’t. Converge’s energy is infectious to their fans, meaning about 20-30 people in my vicinity started to get “the itch.” I could tell everyone else was waiting to see what would happen. The rest of the band came out and rocked the shit out of “Plagues.” There’s no middle ground with Converge and it seemed that those in the crowd who weren’t familiar with them made up their mind right there—mostly in favor. 

The rest of their set was conservative (for Converge), meaning no “Jane Doe” or “The Saddest Day,” but it was still hard hitting. They played two songs off of the new album: “Dark Horse” and “Axe to Fall” which demonstrated the bands’ gymnastic abilities on their respective instruments. Perhaps the most telling part of Converge’s performance, and their attempts to break down the gap between band and crowd, was during “No Heroes” when Jacob Bannon repeatedly threw the microphone into the crowd so fans could scream along. Giant venue be damned, these guys are punk rock through and through, which is something to admire. 

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