On April 18th Lorna shore, Mastodon, and Gojira kicked off their nationwide Mega Monsters tour in the great town of Portland Oregon at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Mastodon and Gojira have crossed paths once before for a couple of shows when Gojira was getting their start into the metal scene yet now they are joining forces to rock 35 cities nationwide!
Lorna Shore was on hand to get things kicked off. Lead singer Will Ramos polled the crowd “With a show of hands, who’s hear of us”, he said. “Wow, a lot more than I expected” was his response after a resounding show of hands.
Mastodon came on stage and the sea of fans erupted with excitement, using 16 large LED screens to display vibrant visuals throughout the entire set and really put the “show” in showmanship. Fans in the mosh were eager to show support for the band in the form of a circle pit that started only a song and a half in. Bassist Troy Sanders had a few words for the city of Portland. He expressed that he has so much gratitude for the city of Portland because he can see where he came from when they were a smaller band playing in Dante’s Club down the road, and now they are playing arenas! The boys of Mastodon play with such passion and speed. Rhythm guitarist Brett Hinds broke one of his guitar strings at the end of “Andromeda” which they have not played live since 2018, but his guitar technician was able to get his axe swapped quickly so he could keep melting ear drums with insane riffs. During “Sultan’s Curse” the pit of the memorial coliseum turned into an ocean, with waves of crowd surfers, the security could barely catch them all. With their set coming to an end Mastodon gave a special thank you to Portland and announced that they will be returning sooner than we know!
The crowd, inundated with smoke and the lights went dark, Then the opening riff to “Born For One Thing” started and the crowd instantly started moshing. Then the curtain fell and Gojira came into view, silhouetted by intense lights from the stage. Gojira shows a sneak peak of what plans they have in store for the crowd by blasting 20 foot tall columns of flames behind them, really heating up the already balmy arena! To my surprise they played their hit song “Stranded” only 3 songs in. Everyone in the pit should have brought a helmet for what drummer Mario Duplantier had in store. It was raining drumsticks as Mario threw them as far as he could. About 15 drumsticks were thrown across the sea of people, with fans diving over one another to grab a piece of this amazing moment. Mario also got a moment in the spotlight to demonstrate his impressive technical drumming prowess. Ending it with some crowd work, he held up a sign that read “I can’t hear you” and when he was finally satisfied with crowds cheering he had other signs to keep us updated on our progress! Then lead singer Joe Duplantier came on to tell Portland how beautiful they looked and said that there was no better place to start off this tour.
As the night went on, the screen behind Gojira went black, everyone was wondering what was happening, then a visual of all the band members in spacesuits played as the intro to “Another World” displayed. With another world playing, the screens took the crowd on a journey through the cosmos to a beautiful planet filled with trees and waterfalls, but soon they would find what this beautiful land was, it was actually what was left of their home Paris, France. After a visually spectacular journey, Gojira led the fans on a spiritual one too, Joe came onto the mic to ask for help on the next song, as he was telling the crowd how to help, he expressed that the melody they were singing was left as a blank space for anyone to put any emotions, any thoughts, any problems into and sing them away and become a unified sound for a little while. The crowd was more than happy to meet his demand as they sang their hearts out in unison to a song called “The Chant”. This atmosphere is what concerts and shows are all about, bringing a group of people from different backgrounds, different upbringings to enjoy one common thing, and that is their love for music. After “Amazonia” the band left the stage, also leaving the crowd wanting more. As the stadium joined in a chorus of chants for Gojira, the boys from France put the cherry on top, “Silvera”. There was not a single head in the room that wasn’t banging along to the beat and singing with all they had left in store. The house lights came on and the band said their goodbyes, the Mega-Monsters show in Portland was a wrap, but the tour was just beginning.
