Another day, another show! I have done several of these reviews now, and never have I been this stumped on how to begin a review!
On April 11th, I was invited to photograph DETHKLOK at KEMBALive! in Columbus, Ohio. At first, I did not think too much about it, I thought about passing it up. I have shot DETHKLOK, never seen or heard of DragonForce, I have heard about them, but… was it worth the drive? I was not sure to be honest. Then I started to think about a conversation I had with my nephew not too long ago. I invited him out to see a show earlier this year and he had never heard of Ventanna, Psychostick, Psyclon Nine, or CROSSBREED, and he refused to go and it turned out that he missed out on one helluva show!
That is when I thought to myself that DETHKLOK is a great time, and I have heard nothing but amazing things about DragonForce… I am gonna go. Spoiler alert, I am delighted and ecstatic that I made the trip!
I made the drive from my home in Canton, and the parking for this venue was fantastic! I am sure that plenty of the people reading this can easily rattle off horror stories of venue parking, not at KEMBALive! Parking was close, and very affordable, well lit, and it was part of the venue’s plot in Columbus.
I got to the will call window to get my ticket and credentials, and the venue had things working like a Swiss watch! I got in, and I see the merch tables, and I did not know there was a 3rd band on the ticket, I thought “Who the hell is Nekrogoblikon!?!”
I love the element of surprise with shows, and movies! This is why, when covering a show it is rare that I will look into who is opening, I want to live in the moment and see things happen. As the night went on, and showtime was rolling up, they were right on schedule! The lights went down, and the house music stopped and then out came the guys in Nekrogoblicon!
At first, I just saw a group of guys, in normal metal attire, just t-shirts, and long hair… then it happened! Their vocalist runs out, and the house went nuts! Their vocalist was an actual goblin! I LAUGHED SO HARD! His make up and prosthetics were fantastic! He was one crude little dude! The gestures and signals he was giving to the crowd, pointing out women, and then making facial expressions of sheer ecstasy as he would tweak his nipples at the women! Everyone was just losing their minds! The Nekrogoblikon set was fantastic! I had never heard of them before this show and now I cannot stop listening to them! I stopped by the merch table to grab some stickers, and their merch was very artistic and creative! If you have not seen or heard Nekrogoblikon, do not worry about it too much, I was right there with you! However, if you are reading this, now you have no excuse! Go check them out and give them some well deserved attention!
Next up was DragonForce, the Brittain based band who is proud to boast how they are there to sing for and about all things nerdy! As the stage was cleared from the Nekrogoblikon set, they uncovered these huge mock-up arcade cabinets. I am not sure how many people reading this will be old enough to remember the old arcades, but I am one of those kids!
There were one on each side of the stage, I thought it was fantastic! These were seriously oversized mock-ups with games on a loop on the screen. Looking on to the stage, the left side was Pac-Man and the other side, I want to say was Galaga. They were easily four times the size of the old gaming cabinets, and during the show, the members of DragonForce took turns climbing up on top of the cabinets to perform!
I thought that was cool in itself, and then they topped that! They had two inflatable dragon heads behind them for the entire performance. The vocalist, Marc Hudson had me belly laughing at one point! He opened the show with what I can tell most of the fans throughout the house knew: Fury of the Storm
Next song the crowd got even more rowdy! They went into Cry Thunder! This is when Marc stopped between Cry Thunder, and before going into their 3rd song of the set, he addressed the crowd for all of us who did not know who they were and said that they are Brittain, and they were once again here to invade America to sing about all things NERDY! He said that they have songs about board games, video games, fantasy lore, and of course… DRAGONS! He mentioned that the next song was off their newest release “Warpspeed Warrior” and it was a song about the Legend of Zelda! The energy in the crowd was electric at this point!
Before they started the song, this is where Marc had me in stitches! He said to the crowd: “Now gimme a show hands, how many of you have played any of the Zelda games?” Hands went up, and you could tell who were the die-hard players, not only did they raise both hands with extreme excitement, but they were screaming and jumping around! I cannot stress enough how awesome it was to see so many who are commonly seen as outcasts to the mainstream being in the mainstream and surrounded by those who embrace the culture as much or more! I digress, moving on!
As Marc walked over to the side of the stage, talking into the mic, he said: “How can we have a song about the Legend of Zelda without having a giant chicken to toss?!?” Every time I thought that the crowd could not get louder, they proved me wrong!
Marc walked back to center stage, and he raised up this giant stuffed chicken in his hand high above him as if he were Perseus holding up the head of Medusa in a triumphant victory stance! He continued to address the crowd and said: I need everyone to listen up! I have three rules with this chicken! I need everyone to respect the three rules, can we do that?” In reply, the crowd almost on queue in unison replied YES or a variation of.
Marc continued:
Rule no. 1 – I want to see this chicken all over the venue! I want to see up in the upper deck! EVERYWHERE!
Rule no. 2 – DO NOT HIT THE SOUND BOARD!
Rule no. 3 – At the end of the song, the chicken comes back to me!
Most of the crowd either laughed or agreed, but you could hear a couple disgruntled moans of disappointment peppered throughout the crowd… I would be lying if I said I was not one of them!
Power of the Triforce started, and that chicken was all over that place! There were almost 2,000 people in attendance, and I can say that easily 1500 people touched that thing! In hindsight, it makes me wonder what was that thing made of!
The rest of their set was just as awesome and entertaining! I will be keeping an eye on their tour schedule to catch them the next time they hit the area!
It was finally time to welcome the most brutal and terrifying metal band of all to take the stage… I am talking about none other than the legends themselves: DETHKLOK!
Some who know that Metalocalypse is a cartoon from Adult Swim, and would pose the obvious question: how does that band tour if they are fictional characters in a cartoon?
That is a viable thought! Let me offer some background on that topic. Brendon Small, a musician and animator created DETHKLOK and the Metalocalypse series. So, as the musicians on stage are nothing more than a silhouette, they play live music that is written and recorded for the show. DETHKLOK, in all actuality is a real band since they have people playing the music which is all original works for them.
As Brendon Small (vocals and guitar), Gene Hoglan (Drums), Mike Keneally (Guitar), and Bryan Beller (Bass) play in almost total darkness, there are sequences of the cartoons playing behind them larger than life!
Earlier in this article, and many before this one, I have said how I will rarely do any pre-show research, I enjoy the element of surprise… DETHKLOK was one of the few times I was not going to wait for. I have covered their show in the past, and was completely unprepared for what to watch for, how to cover it, and I was not going to make that mistake again.
I learned that Metalocalypse was available on HBO Max, and so one night I binged the show and I was blown away by this! Not only the creativity of this world, but how brutally graphic this show was! I was cast into a gambit of emotions from hysteria to absolute awe that they got away with what they did!
The music of DETHKLOK is outlandish, imaginative, and unrelenting from start to finish! It saddens me to say this, but I think that they are up there with the likes of Suicide Slience and Cannibal Corpse for me… too heavy to listen to while I am driving or relaxing but always a sensationally ruthless and chaotic happening!
Now that I understand and can fully appreciate DETHKLOK, I have to say that savagery and merciless mentality of the band makes it all the more entertaining! In the event, you are like me and don’t really have a history with these guys, start now! You will be glad you did!
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