Dethklok – Roseland Ballroom – 11/14/12

Better Than: Almost everything.

Dude. On Friday night, Dethklok played the Roseland Ballroom, and our brains are still recovering from the awesomeness. Here are the ten best things that happened.

See Also:
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10. Machine Head played second. This was significant for two reasons. One, they were supposed to go on next to last, but they switched places with All That Remains because they’re nice guys. Two, lead singer Robb Flynn had been hit by a taxi earlier that day, had spent hours in the hospital, and still showed up to play a great set.

9. Ten seconds of silence for Mitch Lucker. Machine Head asked the crowd to be silent for 10 seconds, in honor of Suicide Silence vocalist Mitch Lucker, who passed away in a motorcycle accident last month. The audience complied. It’s kind of amazing when a giant room full of raging metalheads goes completely quiet.

8. Klokateers tuned Dethklok’s instruments. What is a Klokateer? See photo, below.

7. The first song of Dethklok’s set was the Metalocalypse theme song.

6. The animation was spectacular. The way these live Dethklok shows work, the band plays in front of a huge screen, whereupon animated videos accompany every song. Several of these videos were new for this tour, including “Andromeda” and “Crush the Industry” from Dethalbum III. So well coordinated are these videos with the live music that Brendon Small’s vocals looked perfectly in sync with animated character Nathan Explosion’s mouth movements whenever he appeared on the screen.

5. They played the “Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle.”

4. Dr. Rockzo led a call-and-response with the audience. The loveably obnoxious rock ‘n’ roll clown enjoyed shouting phrases for the crowd to repeat after him. Words of choice included “cocaine”, “dildos”, and “boner time.”

3. A video interlude told guys at metal concerts not to molest women in the audience. Damn straight! I can’t even tell you how many times creepy douchebags have used a packed house as an excuse to unnecessarily place a hand on my person–usually under the guise of “needing to squeeze past” in order to “get to the bar.” Keep your hands to yourself, guys. Seriously.

2. Gene Hoglan. One of the fastest, crispest drummers in existence, Hoglan makes everything he touches more metal.

1. Brendon Small improvised voices of characters from the show. At the end of the night, the voices of guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf, drummer Pickles, and singer Nathan Explosion emanated from Small in a collective dissing of hurricane Sandy. It was surreal to hear so many different personalities spontaneously channeled through one man. Explosion also praised Flynn from Machine Head for showing up after a difficult last day of a challenging tour: “Robb’s balls fell off at some point in the tour. They got eaten by raccoons. And then he got hit by a taxi cab today.”

Critical Bias: I love Metalocalypse.
Overheard: Fan, backstage, to Gene Hoglan: “Will you give a shout out to my son Leo Satanfingers?”
Random Notebook Dump: It’s like “Sesame Street Live” for adults. Your favorite TV characters are there in front of you. But this is darker and cooler.

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