Broken Hope - Malevolent Creation
Oct 14th 1999
The Whisky, Los Angeles, CA, USA
My first concert since I've moved. It was originally a triple bill, Broken Hope headlining, Malevolent Creation and Internal Bleeding opening. However, Internal Bleeding didn't make it for some reason.
So there were three other opening acts, 2 LA bands, and a relapse band, and then Broken hope took the stage. But weren't they headlining? Unfortunately, their singer Joe Ptacek had the flu and his voice was bothering him, so the band performed a shorter set and let Malevolent Creation take the headlining position. But even with a bad throat, Joe managed to fill the room with his bassier then bassy voice. Wasn't sure it even was Joe at first, he's now bald and with a very short beard. Anyways, they played a short set, but several tracks off "Loathing", one off the new album 'Internal Inferno', 'Gorehog' and 'Swamped in Gore' off the first album, and several including 'Remember my Members' and 'Hobo Stew' from "Bowels". The mix was good, certainly better then the last show I saw them at, although the drummer's blast beats were not loud at all, you could hear his single hits just fine, but his blast hits were completely inaudible, as though he wasn't able to hit the drum hard enough at that speed to produce any sound. The band was tight, did their thing, and then left.
Malevolent came next. Another good mix, Dave Culross is back on drums (ya!) although he seemed more agitated then normal, usually he sits very still and calm while playing, this time he was smashing and moving around like crazy, especially during 'To Die Is At Hand', he played every single beat of that song, and for anyone who's heard that song, it's fast and very punishing on the body, his endurance is truly astounding. But then again, the Malevolent material has always been more about endurance then fancy drumming, unlike Dave's last gig with Suffocation, that required both. Brett Hoffman did an excellent job on vocals, he truly does have an evil voice, and is very energetic on stage. They played mostly stuff off of the first two albums, and their last album, including 'Monster', 'Eve Of The Apocalypse', 'Slaughter of Innocence', 'Coronation of Our Domain', 'Enslaved', 'Manic Demise', 'Mass Graves', and 'The Fine Art Of Murder'. I would have preferred they play more stuff off of "Eternal" and "In Cold Blood", but I guess they wanted to stick to stuff that Brett knew the best. A shame, many good songs were missed. But many good songs were had.
Lastly, I'm sorry to say the crowd didn't seem to be into the bands all that much. Maybe it was the night, or the time of year, or that crowd, or the fact I'm now in LA instead of Montreal, but the crowd just wasn't as crazy, moshing was minimal, even the bands commented, and tried to "wake up" the audience. Ah well, maybe the next concert. Still a great performance.