Lamb of God, Wrath Tour

Teh Moose recently experienced the ultimate concert with Metal legends, Lamb of God first hand - fists pumping, head banging, body slamming and all.

I’ve seen their videos, I was fond of their songs and I sure as Hell have seen the clips of thousands of people running into each other at full speed during the insane act known as the “Wall of Death.” The thought of injecting steroids into my system did run through my head – it was the only way a 6 ft 2, skinny ass like me was gonna make it through the night, but after much debate, I decided against it. Mainly because of my fear of needles.

I totally ignored the cries of caution like “You should bring along your full plate armour!” or “Scream ‘Justin Bieber is awesome!’ and they’ll be sure to let you off the hook”… I especially ignored that last one.

I wonder if anyone would notice

Anyway, it was my first Metal concert, the closest being Korn’s concert here in Malaysia back in 2009. But this was different, for one, it was happening at D’Marquee, Downtown East in Singapore and secondly, “Wall of Death”, remember!? Plus you know how the concerts here are. Deep Purple was a sit-down concert for fuck’s sake.

The venue was filled with Metalheads of every shape, race, gender, age and hair-do. Each with their own unique tee-shirt paying tribute to their favourite Metal band, singer or it had scary imprints of a skeleton a with flaming sword dry humping a tied-up, blind folded female slave – true story. What made it special was, they were all (despite their physical and sexual preference differences) part of a family and I was their newest member. I admit it, I didn’t know what to expect… was I gonna make it with all my ribs and teeth intact? Was I going to become partially deaf? Was I going to fall for a worthy female counterpart with tattoos, a tongue piercing, a leather outfit and an obsession with lethal weapons and in turn, get disowned by my parents?? This was all so new to me. "Screw it", I said to myself while screwing the jar of peanut butter I was munching on tightly.

Anyone seen my mama?

This was Lamb of God… definitely worth it! I stepped in the tent and was greeted by fans clad in black tees chanting the Pure American Metal band’s name while throwing their hands in the air with the easily identifiable ‘Devil Horns’ sign. Their chants immediately morphed into excited screams and shouts when the intro from ‘The Passing’ came on. More songs from their latest album, Wrath followed next with ‘In Your Words’ and ‘Set To Fail’ which was more than enough for the fans to kick start the sacrificial ritu… I mean mosh pit. It was like a scene from Prison Break when all the prisoners escaped only I joined in. Also, there was no T-Bag character walking around with his bitch holding on to the insides of his pocket.

Randy Blythe fed our hunger for more by playing ‘Walk With Me In Hell’ and ‘Now You’ve Got Something To Die For.’ Should it have been a normal day, with that much head banging and jumping around, my legs would’ve already been quivering and I would’ve had to sit down and catch my breath. But the energy that filled me that night was unexplainable. With Chris Adler’s drumming, Willie Adler’s crazy guitar rifts, John Campbell with the bass and Randy’s energetic and somewhat erotic growls, I wanted more. We all did. The pit grew larger and larger, especially so when Randy himself screamed, “Open it up!” I scanned the crowd eagerly for some Metalhead females who took what he said literally… no such luck however.

"Knock, knock" 

"Choo Choo Muthafucka!"

Back to the pit… I was head banging so hard to ‘Contractor’ that the concert tee shirts I purchased earlier flew out of my bag without me even noticing. Had it not been for that helpful metal head beside me who tapped me on my shoulder and pointed down to them, I would’ve been grieving over my loss right about now. See, that’s the surprising thing – one would expect a Metal concert to be filled with vicious, angry people whose happiness is based solely on the suffering of others and the decapitation of farm animals like goats… but this is absolutely not the case. There exists an unmentioned Metal Code of Ethics, and as mentioned before, we were a family, constantly on the lookout for a fallen comrade or someone in trouble. I’d request that you personally attend and experience a Metal concert before laying down prejudgments on the highly misunderstood Metalheads. I thanked the chap and my focus went back to the concert.

It was getting wilder than before and at last, the moment I dreaded yet secretly anticipated had arrived – the intro for ‘Black Label’ came on and I felt a shudder of excitement flow down through my spine as I watched the crowd divide themselves into two. The countdown took place and before I knew what was happening, all Hell broke loose. People were running into each other at top speed, bodies slamming, people had a look of pure animalistic rage on their faces and everyone chanted and head banged along to the tunes of one of Lamb of God’s greatest song – the “national anthem” for the Wall of Death, 'Black Label.' I wouldn’t have opted for any other finale to what was possibly the craziest night of my life.

Randy describes it best when he said:

"Holy fuckin shit! You people are fuckin crazy!!!"