Wild and raucous describes West Michigan’s live music assault for the last week of May with national and regional acts firing up stages for big crowds. Check out the colorful images.
Colorful Show, Colorful Week: Rob Zombie helped kick off a high-energy week of live music across West Michigan. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
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Some nights just shape up as more memorable, more epic than others from the very first note that gets played.
First and Only Metal Band to Ever Play SpeakEZ Lounge: Asksumite with special guest vocalist. (Photo/Local Spins)
Wednesday’s SpeakEZ Lounge show celebrating the fourth anniversary of Local Spins with surf rock’s The Concussions, psych-rock’s Lazy Genius and metal’s Aksumite was one of those nights: a club jam-packed with uber-enthusiastic fans cheering one-of-a-kind sets by top-drawer musicians representing different genres.
Oh yeah, it was enough to generate a noise complaint. And while we apologize for that, I also maintain that anyone who actually witnessed the power and revelry of any of these bands would have left smiling and happy: the wall-of-sound grooviness of Lazy Genius, the pedal-to-the-floor ferocity of Damian Master and Aksumite (with some gruesomely primal guest vocals/screams by, yes, John Serba), the masked marvelousness of The Concussions.
All of it added up to one of those nights that will rank as one of the best — or at least, most unusual — in Local Spins Wednesdays history; a mid-week classic. (Check out photos here, and a video snippet of Lazy Genius below.)
PHOTO GALLERY: The Concussions, Lazy Genius photos by Anna Sink
The Grand Rapids cellist showed up backstage at Van Andel Arena on Tuesday night wondering just where he was supposed to go. Asked whether he was there for heavy metal co-headliner Rob Zombie, he responded, “Who’s Rob Zombie?”
As it turns out, the hired musician was there to play cello on a single song — Disturbed’s much-buzzed-about rendition of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.” Suffice to say, Local Spins isn’t sure if he knew what he was in for on a night that featured hard-rocking hometown heroes Pop Evil, horror-hued metal maven Rob Zombie and the heavy metal dudes of Chicago’s Disturbed (who just played a sold-out show at The Orbit Room last month).
Writer Jonathan Beatty filed this report, with photos by Anthony Norkus:
Homecoming: Leigh Kakaty and Pop Evil got things started at Van Andel Arena. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
West Michigan’s Pop Evil made the most of its brief stage time by blazing through a seven-song set that was lean and mean and got the crowd fired up early on.
Rob Zombie followed with a stage show that resembled a mix between a sideshow fun house and “Lost in Space” set pieces. It was hard to focus on any one thing as screens below the stage and behind flashed a barrage of scenes from B-film horror movies as well as go-go dancers. At one point, a 10-foot dancing robot careened across the stage.
Over 30 years, Zombie has gone from fronting seminal ’90s outfit White Zombie to rebranding himself as a solo artist, while also launching a successful career writing and directing horror movies. All of those passions meld together with visuals that add another layer to his aural art, allowing the viewer to become engulfed in this land of sci-fi and hard rock.
Not even a cracked rib could slow down Zombie nor his cohorts from running the length of the stage and engaging fans throughout the entirety of the night, which included covers ranging from Grand Funk Railroad’s classic, “We’re an American Band” to ’80s rapper Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing.”
Sound of Silence and Metal: Disturbed at Van Andel Arena (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
The Chicago natives in Disturbed, meanwhile, are enjoying a bit of a resurgence in the aftermath of their self-imposed hiatus that lasted about five years. Armed with their newest album, “Immortalized,” band members have picked right back up where they left off.
Coming off a sold-out tour that saw them filling smaller clubs such as The Orbit Room, the band is now bring its melodic hard rock to arenas. Disturbed fired out of the shoot by playing “Ten Thousand Fists,” with singer David Draiman encouraging fans to raise thousands of fists during the chorus.
Weaving in and out of their back catalog, the set reminded fans that, like Zombie, the band has churned out an impressive number of hits over its career — not to mention its most recent unlikely hit — the haunting cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” (which the band pulled off with guitarist Dan Donegan played the somber piano parts, bassist John Moyer switching to acoustic guitar and drummer Mike Wengren playing a giant bass drum.
Regardless of having been in town less than a month ago, the near-capacity crowd stuck around until the last chord of “Down with the Sickness” had rung out, completing an evening filled with killer stage production and classic songs. – Jonathan Beatty
PHOTO GALLERY: Rob Zombie, Disturbed, Pop Evil at Van Andel Arena
Photos by Anthony Norkus
Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo staged “an incredible night of ska, punk, metal and funk” on Friday in a “high-energy start to the Memorial Day weekend,” according to Local Spins photographer Derek Ketchum. The lineup included Kalamazoo ska band The Mushmen night out, followed by L.A./Detroit’s Downtown Brown with a metal/punk/funk show and finally L.A.’s Fishbone, performing on the eve of opening the summer festival season at Summer Camp. Fishbone played a two-hours-plus set that even had Dr. Madvibe getting into the audience and crowd-surfing back to the stage.
