C=T contributor, Molly Müeller, will be heading out to catch the Deftones and Funeral Party tonight. We hope she doesn’t leave the venue with any visible scars or missing teeth. Here’s her preview of what we can expect in tonight’s action:
This weekend is another weekend of sold out shows, this time at the Ogden Theatre Friday and Saturday night with Funeral Party, Dillinger Escape Plan and the venerable Deftones. The show will open with Funeral Party, a relatively new band that hails from Whittier, California. According to their MySpace bio, the band formed one night in a park in their hometown. Those of you who are or were fans of the Cure will recognize that their name comes from a Cure song by the same name. They started playing backyard parties and warehouses in East Los Angeles before recording their first song “Chalice,” which became popular in the East Los Angeles music scene. Rhapsody classifies the music as “alt/punk” but it’s more punk rock with a mixture of dance beats (officially known as post-punk dance or post punk revival.) A facebook page refers to them as “Indie Rock Alternative.” An unusual influence is Human League so you know this is going to be interesting. The music to me sounds a lot like The Subways with a techno style beat; I love the Subways. I sense a small but fun similarity to the melodies on The Strokes album Is This It? The band consists of Chad Elliot – Vocals, Samples and Keyboards, James Torres – Guitar, Kimo Kauhola – Bass and Tim Madrid-Keyboards and Percussion. The touring band also includes Robert Schaffer – Drums. The show promises to be a peppy, beat-rocking show that will inspire more happy people dancing than the moshing that is sure to materialize later in the evening. Songs that will hopefully highlight the evening are “Finale,” “New York City Moves to the Sound of Los Angeles” (do I sense a hint of Tupac Shakur/ Notorious B.I.G. rivalry?) and the super-danceable “Car Wars;” all from the new album The Golden Age of Nowhere. The Deftones, a band that has been around since 1989 and was formed in Sacramento, CA, can be classified as “alternative metal” or “indie metal;” you get the idea. This is a band founded on and motivated by quite a bit of tragedy including a car accident in 2008 that left their bassist Chi Cheng in a “minimally conscious state (not the same as a coma)” since the accident. Current members are Chino Moreno (lead vocals and guitar), Stephen Carpenter (guitar), Sergio Vega (bass), Frank Delgado (keyboards and turntables), and Abe Cunningham (drums and percussion). The Deftones have six studio albums but the current tour is to support their new album, Diamond Eyes, an album that was written and inflenced by the unfortunate accident that took Chi Cheng out of the line up. According to Cunninham, the band didn’t even plan on making another album, they just started playing music together as a catharsis and ended up with Diamond Eyes. I hope to hear songs from all six albums including “Diamond Eyes” from the album of the same name, “Change(In the House of Flies”) from White Pony (quite the radio hit at one point), “Be Quiet and Drive(Far Away) from Around the Fur and “Bored” from the album Adrenaline. With six very diverse albums they have a large collection of fan favorites to choose from. Also playing both nights is Dillinger Escape Plan, an American “mathcore” band from Morris Plains, New Jersey. What is mathcore? According Wikipedia it is “a rhythmically complex and dissonant style of metalcore.” We shall see…