Sepultura
- Biohazard - One Minute Silence
March 6th 1999
Metropolis, Montreal, PQ, Canada
The irony seemed almost poetic. A night of metal by a group of Brazilians who live in 100 degree weather, and the concert was in Montreal on a freezing Saturday night, the temperature dipping below 0 degrees. Once again, to the Metropolis, and even with my hood wrapped snugly around my head, my whole body screamed for warmth. It finally found it once we entered the building, and the opening act was already on their way. One Minute Silence starting things off, a british band (I assume from the accents) that did a hard-core rap thing, the bass player had two long ponytails, he looked sort of like Red from Fraggle Rock actually (as a friend noted). They were generally good, with some nice beats, but they weren't my thing. Biohazard was next, a legendary band, but they seem to be stuck always opening for someone else. I'm not really into their music, so I won't review the act, but once again, it was decent with some nice but old school riffing.
Finally, the stage curtain went down (I didn't know they had a curtain), and we waited a good 20 minutes, until the opening music started pumping through the sound system. The curtain rose, and there was Igor on the drums. A excellent night for percussion. Igor's kit looked small, but he had plenty of smaller toms and bongos hidden all over the place, and he seemed to coax all kinds of unique percussive sounds out of his kit all evening. This was more than just keeping the beat, and more than blasting us with pure speed, it was this whole tribal vibe, you go into the jungle and you meet a bunch of cannibals who happen to be playing metal. Igor had some help too, a giant set of bongos appeared center stage, where the bands new singer, Derrick Green, a 6 foot something imposing black man with long dreads, hammered away with Igor on several songs. And towards the end of the show, about 4 other giant tribal drums were brought out on stage for the whole band + some members of Biohazard to pound on for an all percussive segment.
Anyways, on to other things, Derrick did an excellent job on vocals. He's not Max, he doesn't try to be Max, he tries to be himself, and his extra bassy voice added the right touch to the music. As well as percussion, Derrick also played guitar on a few pieces, including a crushing version of 'We Who Are Not As Others'. Andreas' guitar work was excellent, although a bit noisy, which could have been either the venue or just him being a bit sloppy, but he still certainly knows what he's doing. Not much to say about Paulo's bass playing, it was decent, and with all the dominating personalities on the stage, he just blended in with the background.
Some of the songs played: 'Arise', 'Dead Embryonic Cells', 'Refuse / Resist', 'Territory', 'Amen', 'Propaganda', 'Biotech is Godzilla', 'Attitude', 'Cut-Throat', 'Spit', 'Choke', 'Against', 'Rumors', 'Old Earth', 'Hatred Aside'. They actually played every song I wanted to hear, it was an excellent selection of songs. 'Attitude' was especially great, another example of how Sepultura, through heavy riffs and strong percussion can get several thousand people to slam their heads in a hypnotic rhythm. They ended the concert with 'Roots', an excellent choice.
All in all, Sepultura are great to see live, they have stretched the envelope as to what can be done in a metal arena while staying savagely brutal.