Lamb of God brought their Omens tour to Portland on Tuesday. Set up in the “Theater of the Clouds” configuration for the gig, four incredible bands started delivering body blows at 6:00 and didn’t stop until the last note of “Redneck” echoed through the venue.
The Portland metal family, anxious to dispell some excess energy had the mosh going shortly after Fit For an Autopsy opened their set. Lead singer Joe Badolato reflected on previous tour visits in Portland, playing the much smaller Dante’s and expressing his gratitude for being able to be on this tour and playing at the Moda Center. For Spiritbox, it was their last night on this tour. Singer Courtney LaPlante said that they were kicked off the tour due to “partying too hard”. Whether there was truth to that or not, they clearly left it all on stage for us in Portland.
Killswitch Engage took the stage with the clear intent to play hard and have fun. Vocalist Jesse Leach strutted over to guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz’s pedalboard and pointed out that Adam has a pedal that “when you step on it, it makes a fart noise” which he proceeded to demonstrate. The rest of the band tried to contain their laughter, but it was all for naught. Clearly, this band is still living it’s best life. Adam’s quirky humor found a way to dabble a little spice all throughout their set. Jesse was feeling pretty political, but was talking about how everyone can “take your racism, your sexism, your ageism and just fuck off with it” to which Adam added “masturbate more”. Did I mention that Adam has a quirky sense of humor? Killswitch Engage had the throttle on full for their whole set as security struggled to contain the cascade of crowd surfers spilling over the barricade.
When Lamb of God hit the stage, there was a brief reprieve for the crowd to catch it’s collective breath. Shrouded behind a black kabuki, Lamb of God sauntered on stage and began the eerie and solemn intro to Memento Mori, but when the kabuki dropped and the concussion grenade rattled the rafters, it was back up to full throttle once again. It was all fire and brimstone when Lamb of God took us on a virtual journey as singer Randy Blythe passionately asked us all to “Walk With Me In Hell”. The fire on stage, and swarm of writhing, thrashing bodies consumed in the circle pit raised the temperature in the Moda Center significantly. Despite the fact that the new album was just a few days old, the set list only had two of the new tracks, “Nevermore”, and the title track “Omens”. The band instead, opting for classic hard-hitters like “Ruin” and “Laid to Rest”.
Lamb of God is touring stateside through late October before heading overseas and slaying Europe.
