Opiate for The Masses Rock Live.

Last Wednesday, The Taste of Chaos tour swung through Des Moines. Underoath was amazing, Bleed the Dream was fantastic, Killswitch Engage and My Chemical Romance were everything I expected them to be–and I expected them to be pretty damn good, and despite some sound problems The Used were good as well. Since last Wednesday, I’ve been plagued by an upper respiratory infection and have bothered to emerge from the haze of cough suppressants, antibiotics and ephedrine only to post the daily music and tech news and to go to work. (Thanks to the antibiotics, I’m not contagious. Lucky for me.) I’ve nearly lost my voice almost three times now. This morning I woke up and realized that somewhere on my desk was a write up on Opiate for the Masses. I figured, nearly a week is long enough, I should probably do something about that.

Opiate for the Masses is an experimental metal band from Arizona. This quartet plays fast, mostly guitar driven rock meshed with various samples ala Pop Will Eat Itself, that on first listen I found to be generic, which was a little disappointing. Its just that, after a cursory pass, when the CD stopped spinning, I couldn’t think of anything distinctive or noteworthy about it. It wasn’t that it was bad, that would have given me something to write about. It just fell into that category of, “I wouldn’t turn this off. But, I wouldn’t turn it on either.” They’re in good company, I consider The Killers, Franz Ferdinand and Ingram Hill to all be in this category. At Taste of Chaos, their performance was sandwiched between Killswitch Engage and My Chemical Romance. “That’s just unfortunate, ” I thought when I heard that. I was wrong. Much like Ingram Hill, these gents are best represented live.

At Taste of Chaos they had two stages set up, the main stage and the myspace.com/acoustic stage. The acoustic stage allowed everyone a moment to breath between the lights and insanity of the main stage. The acoustic stage was very laid back, no flashing, ridiculous light show, just the musicians. It was great. Opiate for the Masses and Bleed the Dream rocked the house without the bells and whistles, and in my mind the only performance that topped theirs was Underoath. ( Not to knock MCR, Killswitch or The Used. They all gave quality performances.) Guitarist Jim Kaufman sat on one side of the stage and bassist Ryan Head sat on the other. As always, the drum kit, manned by Seven Antonopolous dominated the back of the stage. Singer Ron Underwood exploded out of the side of the stage wearing what looked like a Russian Army hat and a coat. Underwood captivated the audience. He was also wearing the ugliest pair of pants I have ever seen.

Article Author: Katharine Donelson

Katharine Donelson is a student of Linguistics, Communication and Welsh. She currently lives with her formerly feral cat and spends her time learning Welsh vocabulary, listening to music, watching films, photographing the local scenery and maintaining her blog The Film Noir Experience. …

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