Review & photos by Rachel Jablonski
When you have the chance to see a band that produced your pick for album of the year, you don’t miss it. Back in May, on tour in support of their debut album The Spore, I was fortunate enough to catch Opiate for the Masses in Davenport, IA. Now on a new leg of their extensive touring schedule, I was prepared to go to great lengths to see the band with Ill Nino and Static X. I had considered traveling to St. Louis on a Monday night, but luckily a date just happened to come up in Cedar Rapids, IA before my travel plans commenced.
Quite the setting for a rock show, Opiate for the Masses and Ill Nino stopped to play at a local “club” called Let’s Dance on a tour off-day. A sign advertising the club, “LET’S DACE” it read, welcomed show goers as they approached the venue. On the entrance door was a newspaper article accompanied by a picture of 17-year-old girls dancing. Once inside the building a gigantic snowman sat out of place off to the right of the stage. In addition, on the wall an oversized poster board advertised Sunday night polka. In other words the atmosphere for the rock show was quite a bit odd. But nonetheless Opiate and Ill Nino put forth strong effort and showed much appreciation for fans despite the setting with entirely too much variety.
Fans in attendance witnessed the core of Opiate for the Masses' live experience on the very snowy Tuesday night. For me, the main highlight of the evening was the ability to intensely watch the talents of drummer Seven Antonopolous due to a relatively personal stage set-up. His evil glares, powerful crashes, and stick acrobatics were very well engineered and ultimately impressive.
Also on the bill headliner Ill Nino pulled off an energetic show featuring some old music and many new tunes. “God Save Us,” “What Comes Around,” and “I Am Loco” were the highlights from their 2001 release Revolution Revolucion.
Unfortunately, there was one annoying hindrance at Let’s Dance; it was clearly not set up for a rock show that evening. The clashing decorations and various format advertisements aside, the sound was not completely up to par which was not by any fault of the bands. Stage construction prior to the concert had just been conducted, the stage leveled off from two tiers to one. As a result an echo of distortion buried itself in the mix creating some sound disturbance. Despite the audio confusion, the band performances pulled through for a rather successful show.
For more information on Opiate
for the Masses:
Official Site
Myspace
For more information on Ill Nino:
Official Site