Fever Tour
Egyptian Room – Indianapolis, IN
10/12/2010
Bullet for my Valentine is one of my favorite bands. The fact of the matter is, they are just GOOD. I’ve seen them several times before, but as soon as I heard their latest album, Fever, I was excited for them to tour again. I saw the Indianapolis date on the schedule and I immediately bought tickets, and began trying to convince friends to go with me. Luckily, I got a couple friends to tag along, and it was ON!
BFMV blew me away, right from the beginning. I loved the fact that they were so energetic on stage, I loved the lead singer’s accent (random I know, but its awesome), and I loved how their individual talent so flawlessly complemented each other. I was a little bit in awe. After I left that concert, I immediately began immersing myself in the Bullet for my Valentine’s album that was out, called The Poison. Several songs on that album held my interest strong, until I was able to see them again. I saw them over the years several more times, and after the Scream Aim Fire album, they solidified a spot atop my favorite bands. (Interestingly enough, I think that The Poison is a better album than Scream Aim Fire, but for some reason it took the second album to convince me.)
The History:
The first time I saw Bullet for my Valentine was in 2006 at X103’s Xfest. They were just getting big in the states, and had a middle set on the side stage. I had heard the name, but didn’t know any of their music, and to be honest am a little surprised we made it in early enough to catch their show (pregame festivities are crucial, ya know) Boy am I glad we did!!!
Then 2010 happened. BFMV released their third album, called “Fever”, and in my humble opinion, it is one of the greatest albums in the last decade. Its one of those unique albums that you can listen cover to cover and there’s not a single weak song. Considered by most to be a slightly softer album than their previous work, many of the songs on this album having softer vocals on top of the guitar riffs (vis a vis All These Things I Hate). Matt Tuck continued his incredible lyrics, and the mix of speed and power of this album is incredible.
Side Note: Typically Matt’s lyrics are inspired by personal experience. For instance, Four Words to Choke Upon is a song he wrote for all the people who told him his band would fail. (The four words are “Look at me now”). If he continued this path with the Fever album, he is having some SERIOUS trouble with women. Even if you haven’t heard the songs, titles like ‘Bittersweet Memories’, ‘Pleasure and Pain’, ‘Your Betrayal’, and ‘Alone’ make you feel like the guy is dating some serious bitches.
I digress, the last time I saw Bullet for my Valentine before this show in October was at Rock on the Range in May of this year, and they were great there also, but that was a huge festival and I had never seen their headlining show, so I was VERY excited to see them in a small venue with the sound and lights set up just for them.
The Venue:
The Egyptian Room, which was recently renamed The Egyptian Room at Old National Center (I’m guessing because the owner is REALLY passionate about his home banking) is located downtown Indianapolis as a part of the Murat Theater. The Murat is one of the cultural highlights of our great city in that it brings a steady stream of attractions, from Broadway musicals to concerts to comedians to politicians.
The Egyptian Room is very nearly my ideal small-concert venue. It is, at its core, a big open room with great acoustics. The crowds here are always super energetic because of the free-for-all attitude of the space, as there is no reserved seating anywhere in the venue. In addition, because of a lack of space between the front row of the crowd and the stage, there is a very intimate feeling that you get with the band. In addition, it is one of the bigger “small venues” I’ve been to, with a capacity of 2000. Any time you get a packed place, where the crowd is close, and they are all fueled by $9 beers, it’s always a great time. Never been to a bad show at the Egyptian Room.
The Show:
Side Note: The venue has free water by the restrooms in water jugs. This is HUGE! Please keep doing this.
I was slightly bummed because days before the show, BFMV announced that their bassist and main screamer, Jason James, needed to take some time off from the band to attend to personal matters. This was a major downer for me because one of the great things about their music is how flawlessly the perfect pitch screams make the music pull together so well. However, I tried to look on the bright side….at least they didn’t cancel the show. Their guitar tech filled in for him, and let me say that I could certainly tell the difference, but given a few day’s notice, I was very impressed with how well the guitar tech kept up.
The night started for us, as it so often does, at a bar. Chatam Tap on Mass Ave in downtown Indianapolis is a cool English bar about 3 blocks from the Murat and has decently priced drinks. We always like to start Mass Ave concerts there. Plus it has a bathroom…..which we always need.
Now, on to the show! They opened up this show, as they have for all the shows on the Fever tour, with Your Betrayal. That song starts with the guitar and drums playing a very drumline-like intro, and for the live show, they integrated the lights to strobe with the pulse of the drums. This is borderline one of the coolest show openers I have seen. For this particular show, the crowd was so amped, the strobing made if fee sort of like a rave. It was pretty crazy. (There’s a decent Youtube clip of this opening that shows the effect, but it doesn’t sound great. Click Here to see it. It’s an amateur video….don’t watch past a minute or you might have a seizure.)
As the show progressed, they focused heavily on their new album, playing great songs like Alone, The Last Fight, and Begging For Mercy. As I expected, these songs were great live. We “accidentally” ended up being very close to the front of the stage, and for these few songs, it was surprisingly relatively tame. More than likely, that’s just because I’m comparing the BFMV crowd to the crowd at hard metal festivals where BFMV was the opener.
Another awesome thing about being the headliner is that the extended set time leaves enough space for them to slow the show down a bit, which they haven’t done in recent shows in the past, to play songs like Bittersweet Memories, Curses, and Tears Don’t Fall. This was an awesome contrast to their harder stuff, and made the entire show much more well-rounded.
However, as expected, the show picked up quickly, and about two thirds of the way through, Matt Tuck came out while he was plucking away slowly at his guitar, and said his infamous line “Time to speed things up a bit” I was impressed to hear the crowd scream, as it seemed many (including myself) knew what that meant from previous shows. All the sound stops, and all you hear is the intro to Waking the Demon, barely audible over the crowds screams. I counted no less than 3 mosh pits that opened up at that exact moment, one of which was right in the middle of where I was standing. Complete “chills” moment. Surviving the front few rows of a BFMV concert during Waking the Demon is about as rough as it gets (rivaled only by the front row of Slipknot…which hurt for DAYS).
From then on, the show was pretty hard, with quicker songs like Four Words to Choke Upon, Take It Out On Me, and The Last Fight.
The After Party:
…..was non-existant. We were exhausted and it was a work night. What can I say? I’m getting old.
To sum it all up, as an entire body of work, the BFMV show was just awesome. One of my favorite shows of all time.
Please leave feedback! Cheers!