September 18, 2013 • Peabody's Downunder, Cleveland, Ohio
Yep, Cleveland. A two-hour drive (each way) just to see a show? I must be crazy, right? Nope, just Cult of Luna, who's touring the States for the first time in eight years, and this was their only Ohio show, meaning it'll likely be my only opportunity to see them play, ever. Looking back, it was kind of a silly idea and I highly doubt I'd ever drive so far just for a show ever again—not to say it was bad, though.
Intronaut
I've been listening to Intronaut for a long, long time, though only casually and I haven't really listened to their newer stuff very much. Their show was exactly how I thought it'd be—decent, but not particularly amazing. Apparently Intronaut as a band is really just a support outfit for their bassist to show off (although he really is quite good, so that's not really a complaint). The poor mixing (very light on guitar and vocals) didn't help much. They're a band that's definitely better on CD, but they were still enjoyable enough.
• Best Laser Light Show Award (Suck It, Tool)
Tesseract
They're a decent enough band I guess, but I never really cared much about them. They put on a good enough show, though; at the very least, it looked like they were having fun themselves. I was a bit disappointed by how much of their performance was automated, though—I guess it makes sense to play to a click track when your material is so technical, but automated guitar effects seems a little silly. (And don't bother pretending to play when it's obviously a pre-recorded guitar in that one song, it was so obvious.) Anyway, fine enough if you're a fan.
• Best Capri Pants Award
Cult of Luna
I probably overhyped this show in my mind—I mean, if you've seen their live DVD, you can understand how pumped I was. Now, they did put on as good of a show as they could: a fantastic heavy sound, very cool visuals (although the strobe light was a bit much), and some pretty intense playing. They did seem to have a lot of technical problems, though—broken strings, no bass for half a song, and one of the guitars seemed horribly out-of-tune for a whole song. Still, they played some great songs (nothing earlier than Somewhere Along the Highway but I'll take what I can get) and I did enjoy them quite a bit.
• Most Spilled Beer Award
Katatonia
I think I used to like Katatonia a long time ago, like 2005 or so, but I haven't listened to them in ages and it turns out they aren't really that good anymore. Their alt-rock-pretending-to-be-metal style isn't bad, just very unimaginative and not terribly fun to watch. Also, their entire setup was straight through the mixing board—no amps or anything, which looked really weird and made it seem kind of fake. I bailed after three songs because I wanted to get home, so it might have gotten better, but I doubt it.
• Silliest Banners Award
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