Last night I went to see Mastodon on the “Adult Swim Presents” tour. I had my reservations because it was a Cartoon Network thing but I really wasn’t quite prepared for the reality.
It started out weird. Security was really tight. "This is a metal show, maam" the security woman(?) told me as she confiscated my keychain bottle opener. I've been to shows at the Fillmore and all over and NEVER have I been given shit for a bottle opener. I informed her that i could shank someone much better with my actual KEY as she grabbed my bra and shook it out. Okay. So I was curious what all the fuss was about.
HA! It was a dorkfest, first of all. Because Dethklok was “playing”, the majority of the audience were late-night Adult Swimmers who don’t have anything better to do on Friday nights but watch TV and play video games, apparently. In fact, most of them didn’t seem to know who Mastodon even was.
It was marketed toward kids and “grown” kids of the gaming ilk. They had video game demos set up and were aggressively pushing the new game, Brutal Legend. I found that intensely annoying. There was even a fucking commercial shown before Dethklok took the stage.
The whole thing just bummed me out. Mastodon is such a good band and it sucked to see them whoring themselves out like that. Of course they played well, they are great musicians, but it was definitely without passion. Perhaps knowing that they’ve sold their souls has stolen their fire. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that 90% of the audience on the tour is there to see a cartoon band and not them. Either way, it’s a bummer.
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