Metal Blade Record’s 35th Anniversary Tour – Silver Spring, MD – 2.24.17

The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD is home to some of the biggest acts across all genres.  Tonight, they hosted Metal Blade’s 35th anniversary tour featuring some of the label’s biggest bands.  For this lineup they brought along Whitechapel, Cattle Decapitation, Goatwhore, and Allegaeon to commemorate 35 years of bringing fans everywhere some of the best in the business.  Photographer Luis Rosales was there to help document the early stops of this tour.

Allegaeon took stage as the venue already had everyone inside by the time they start playing.  The band definitely took advantage of the production provided by The Fillmore as they had lighting that was impressive and set the bar high for the entire night.  Allegaeon’s unique, technical sound made for a memorable set during their time on stage. The amount of energy these guys had on stage reflected the fans reactions to the latest release Proponent for Sentience. The longer they played, the more they got into it, but as time was up for Allegaeon fans wanted more.  

Up next, Goatwhore came on stage to give the audience their extreme metal sound to the table.  While they played a fairly short set as well, they still gave their all getting into their music like any band that has been around for many years.  These guys definitely had the look of a death metal band as there wasn’t a lack of long hair, leather, studs, and spike shaped guitars.  Their production as also reflected the look since they kept colors to minimum only using solid red, green or blue lighting the entire set with a the fog machine going off consistently in the back.  Goatwhore’s ominous performance was on not to forget.

Veterans in the death metal genre, Cattle Decapitation was up next to showcase their extreme messages through their music.  The guys wasted no time starting up starting at their scheduled time and blasting through their set.  Even with some technical difficulties from vocalist Travis Ryan, when his microphone ended up malfunctioning, the band continued on for the duration of the fix like nothing ever happened.  A true professional move showing that nothing will phase them.  Keeping up with the ominous theme of the night, production was heavily backlit with reds, blue, and green lighting with strobes that went off occasionally.  Fans reacted as you think they would in a show like this, with massive mosh pits and a few crowd surfers.  Cattle Decapitation finished off with a bang as they closed out their 10 song set list with “Kingdom of Tyrants.”  

After letting the smoke settle on stage, Whitechapel marched on next into the pitch black stage to their intro music as they started with their single “The Saw is the Law.”  These guys are one of the label’s biggest bands so having them headline was right, the true fans came out a created pure chaos in the pit.  Whitechapel knows how to write heavy hitters which translates into some of the best live performances you will see of this genre.  Production for their set was on point and best of the night.   They weren’t shy about using strobes to give the industrial look and used plenty of colors in the back while keeping their dark aesthetic.  For over an hour, Whitechapel continued to play hit after hit as they played songs from every album to give a fair mixture sounds.  Since they opened with a newer song, it was only right that the band closed out their set with “This Is Exile” as their encore.  Whitechapel is known for throwing down at every show and tonight they didn’t prove anyone wrong.  Metal Blade Records put on a heavy hitting lineup for their anniversary tour and did not disappoint, every minute of performance was full of energy and properly displayed.  Be sure to catch this tour as this is only the beginning.