Music as a Weapon Concert Review - Lacuna Coil & Chimaira

The latest installment of large music acts came to the La Crosse area last night with the Music as a Weapon IV tour.  This festival included two stages with multiple vendors, including a tattoo vendor.  Four bands opened up the concert in the afternoon on the second stage, setting up Lacuna Coil, Chimaira, Killswitch Engage and headliner Disturbed on the main stage.  I’m just going to say it out of the gates, this was an amazing concert and there is no way I can talk about everything in one post.  So I’m going to break my review up in three different posts, starting with Lacuna Coil & Chimaira in this post, to be followed by Killswitch Engage tomorrow and Disturbed on Friday.

First off, I’ll describe my setting so you can understand the angle of my pictures and tidbits in later posts.  I went with a great friend of mine who has never been to a large act rock concert before, so this was a great show for her to put on her concert record.  We decided to sit up in the seats for a couple reasons.  One, we were expecting a 4-5 hour show, and standing for that long takes its toll, especially on the mood of the concert.  By the time you get to the last act, you’d be so tired of standing that you’d wish the concert would end sooner, which then would make the remembrance of the concert somewhat faded.  Two, there were tons of, well I call them “mosh-pitters,” and I’m pretty sure you can picture who those people are.  After going to a few concerts and making the mistake of standing somewhat near them and feeling the effect of their “energy,” I figured that my concert experience was always tarnished in some way. So now every concert that I go to, I like to hang out towards the back of the crowd or in the seats so I don’t have to worry about getting my view blocked or having to relocate my spot seven times an hour.

Alright, I’m going too far on the explanation of stuff, on to the reviews! We got to the La Crosse Center around 6:30 p.m. and decided to get a seat right away.  We sat up on the right side (stage left), about 2 sections in from the stage.  The concert was always advertised as Chimaira, Lacuna Coil, KSE and Disturbed, so we were expecting to see Chimaira first.  The lights went out, the blue light came down on the drums and the sound began to rise.  One by one, band members came out on the stage.  But then at first note I’m like, “It’s Lacuna Coil!”  I was really looking forward to Lacuna Coil because they’re related pretty closely to some other of my favorite bands (Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica).  They were very high energy and played very, very well live.  Cristina Scabbia, lead female vocalist, has a beautiful voice and pulled off a lot of high note sections that most vocalists lay off during live concerts.

The crowd was somewhat light for Lacuna Coil, but that could have been the idea that they were going to go on second, but honestly, radio stations around here don’t play much metal.  They did play some Lacuna Coil on The Rock after the concert announcement, but I don’t think they’ll keep it up now.  However, they did play Disturbed like 96 times a day to get ready for them.  I honestly wish they would start promoting bands like Lacuna Coil because they’re music, along with other bands of their genre, sends out a different message than traditional or popular rock you hear on the radio today.  I think that those bands would get a good response from the area, and maybe even bring some of those acts here!  That’s a hint to all concert promoters in the area…

Back to the concert. Lacuna Coil got off the stage in 25 minutes! I couldn’t believe they played a set that short, but they did play a few of my favorites, so I was satisfied.  I got a few good pictures of their performance, so be sure to check those out, along with my pictures of the entire concert (Click on the picture above).  The SlideShow follows the order, starting off with Lacuna Coil and ending with Disturbed.  In about 15 minutes, the set crew switched sets and brought out Chimaira.  They were H-E-A-V-Y.  I’ve seen some pretty loud bands in the past, but man, these guys were out to shake the place down.  The Music as a Weapon tour has been around for four installments so far, and they try to bring a wide array of rock genres to the stage in one concert.  Chimaira fit in with the heavy/death metal genre.  They were a screamers, shredders and all out energy kind of band.  The crowd was into them from the first song, and they even noted that they appreciated the fan involvement.  They played for about 30-35 minutes.  I think that Lacuna Coil and Chimaira switch off every other concert so that one can have a longer set than the other.  I honestly wished Lacuna Coil would have had the 35 minutes set, but what can you do.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of the Music as a Weapon Concert Review with Killswitch Engage, and then Friday for Part 3 with Disturbed!

Rock, BC \m/