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Mudvayne, Life Of Agony, American Head Charge And Bloodsimple Tour Report From April 9th In Philadelphia

Band Photo: Mudvayne (?)

I attended the Philadelphia stop on the Mudvayne, Life of Agony, American Head Charge and Bloodsimple tour on Saturday, April 9th at the Electric Factory. Mudvayne recently had to cancel their stop on the Guerilla Tour for Philly due to many different reasons. However they still honored those tickets at this show. Which were cheaper, by the way. I had the chance to also interview Matt McDonough prior to the event so look for that in the coming days as well!

Bloodsimple opened up the show, I’ve only ever really heard one song prior to the show, which is Straight Hate. A few members of Bloodsimple were in Vision of Disorder, which I never actually liked too much but I must admit I really like Bloodsimple. They’re really great live, they sound amazing and they get the crowd into them, as well as having great stage presence. They played a few songs, I didn’t catch too many song titles though other than when they played Straight Hate which is what they ended their twenty-minute set with.

After them American Head Charge came onto the stage. I haven’t seen them since their Pledge of Allegiance tour with Slipknot a couple years back. So when they came to the stage and they were more or less in just regular clothes I was caught off-guard but at the same time happy they got rid of their whole freakish/circus look. They still sounded amazing and played songs from both of their albums. This included “Seemless”, “Pushing The Envelope”, “Pledge Allegiance”, and “Loyalty” to name a few. They ended their performance after about thirty-five minutes worth of material. They definitely didn’t lose one ounce of intensity in their long time off of touring!

Life of Agony was up next, I am not a fan in the least of this band for many different reasons. However, from what I could hear they sounded pretty good, the volume was up a bit too loud for them. They were louder than any band that night, which made it harder to hear them. They played a lot of older material as well as some newer songs. I don’t remember any song titles other than that they played “River Runs Red”. Other than the volume problem they were actually pretty good live and I could tell the fans were into their set. At one point, the singer brought his son out to ask the fans “are you ready to rock?” and the fans screamed, which wasn’t good enough for the singer, so he said he wanted better. His kid then screamed “are you ready to rock?!” even louder and then the place erupted in a simultaneous “yeah!” and after about an hours worth of songs they exited the stage.

Mudvayne was next, and I’ve seen them more than ten times already and every time they just keep getting better. They usually play smaller venues here in Philly such as the Trocadero theater, however with this line-up of bands I can see why it was put in a bigger venue that holds about 3,000 rather than about 1,500. The band came out to the old country song “On The Road Again” and immediately after that they started playing their new song “Fucking Determined” to open the show. They played for about ninety minutes and they played songs from all three of their major-label releases, but nothing from their re-released version of “Kill I Oughtta” which is now called “The Beginning of All Things to End”. They played such songs as “-1”, “Nothing To Gein”, “Death Blooms”, “Dig”, “Not Falling”, World So Cold”, “Happy?”, “IMN”, Rain.Sun.Gone” and “Silenced” to name some titles. They sounded amazing, better than all of the other times I’ve seen them and they definitely made the place go insane, with 3 individual pits breaking into one gigantic pit at one point, than back down to 2 smaller ones again. It was definitely a show worth seeing!

This tour was one of the best I’ve seen in a long time, I know I say that with all of my reports, but this one really does take the cake when it comes to a quality show. The price is a little more steep than most shows I attend, however it almost seems like a steal to get in for the price they charge, all of the bands sounded good and if it comes to a town near you, you really should check it out, you won’t regret it!

The remaining tour dates are as follows:

April 12th - New York, NY @ Roseland Ballroom
April 13th - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
April 15th - West Springfield, VA @ Jaxx
April 16th - Norfolk, VA @ Norva
April 17th - Atlanta, GA @ Earlthlink Live
April 19th - Charleston, SC @ Center Stage at te Plex
April 20th - Lake Buena Vista, FL @ The House Of Blues
April 22nd - New Orleans, LA @ Twiropa
April 23rd - Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
April 24th - Mcallen, TX @ La Villa Real
April 26th - Corpus Christi, TX @ Concrete Street
April 27th - San Antonio, TX @ Live Oak Civic Center
April 29th - Lubbock, TX @ The Pavilion
April 30th - Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theater
May 1st - Las Vegas, NV @ The House of Blues
May 3rd - Los Angeles, CA @The Henry Ford Theater
May 4th - Tempe, AZ @ The Marquee Theatre
May 6th - Chico, CA @ Senator Theatre
May 7th - San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
May 8th - Reno, NV @ The New Oasis
May 10th - Boise, ID @ The Big Easy
May 11th - Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
May 13th - Englewood, CO @ The Gothic Theatre
May 14th - Omaha, NE @ The Sokol Auditorium
May 15th - St. Louis, MO @ The UMB Bank Pavilion