The Metal Alliance Tour, with Behemoth, 1349, Goatwhore and More @ The TLA.
Text by Gabi Chepurny. Images by Jesse Marass.
The Theatre of Living Arts was packed to the brim with metal-heads Thursday night in anticipation of the Metal Alliance Tour.
Reading PA, natives, Black Crown Initiate opened the show with some surprisingly whimsical chords that the crowd was totally into. Halfway through their set, two kids dressed in all black and bandanas walked into the center of the crowd and started doing stretches like they were getting ready for gym class when we really knew they were getting ready to rage.
Two-piece Inquisition took the stage next with a surprisingly full sound, considering there was only a drum kit and guitar on stage. The two – vocalist and guitarist Dagon and drummer Incubus – began with what sounded like the intro to a horror movie soundtrack and ended with their song “Infinite Interstellar Genocide,” which sounds exactly the way you’d expect it to.
Fans were as excited when Goatwhore took the stage as they were for the headliners.
“When you’re feeling sick, a little whiskey and a little Robitussin goes a long way,” lead singer Ben Falgoust told the crowd.
He was greeted with the most metal of cheers.
Throughout the set, the crowd chanted “This is awesome” and “holy shit,” to which Falgoust made sure to let us know he had never heard that happen at a show before.
1349 came from Oslo to deliver fans a good dose of black metal, face paint and all. The band’s name comes from the year the Black Death came to Norway, decimating two thirds of its population. We’re guessing that the fast-paced guitars and heavy bass lines are the closes thing to what the Black Death would sound like if it had actually been a metal band.
Headliners, Behemoth (above), showed us that it is possible to ferociously headbang and play the drums at the same time. The black metal band from Poland impressed the crowd with their stage get-up of what looked like monk’s robes and a performance involving bassist Orion, who brought out a thurible, filling the room with the smell of incense.
Music aside, we’re almost positive that this tour brought us one of the most metal shows to date.
JUMP: The Philly Music Project 
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