...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead @ The Echoplex. 6/17/11.

I first got into Trail of Dead in 2005 when Worlds Apart first came out. My trusty community college was right next to a Tower Records and there I spent large chunks of time reading about music/movies and buying lots of music/movies. It was awesome. I got Worlds Apart, loved it then got 2002's Source Tags and Codes and loved it even more. I sort of lost track of the band after that point. Life threw us on separate paths I suppose. So now it's 2011 and Trail of Dead's latest album, Tao of the Dead rules pretty hard. I'm glad these fellows have wondered back onto my radar and equally glad I finally got to see them live in concert.

Missed the opening acts but made it to the Echoplex just as Austin's finest finished setting up their gear. Echo Park is so much closer than hassling a drive to Hollywood, I'm glad Trail of Dead took my best interests at heart when deciding to book this show. Yeah, so the band came out and blazed through the last half of their new album. Everyone, save for the cocaine binge dude dancing to my left, zoned out and watched as Trail of Dead brought most of Tao of the Dead to life before our eyes. Then they played some older stuff, and the audience went nuts. As soon as the opening notes from "Will You Smile Again For Me" were played as the peaceful looking hipster types in the crowd went ballistic and started jumping and even moshing like it was a Limp Bizkit concert in the early 00's! Kind of funny/strange for me everytime I see these normal folks let loose at non-extreme metal shows but hey, to each their own.

Conrad breaking shit...unintentionally these days

The band was full of energy. I'd heard a lot of hype about how gnarly ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead's stage show is supposed to be and I was not disappointed. No, they didn't smash all their instruments or throw their drums around stage like I read they used to do back in the day ( the band is also in a stripped down phase, rocking it as a four piece and got rid of their 2nd drummer) but they still put on a hell of a show. Everyone but the bassist switched off instruments at least once during the night, with 3/4's of the band behind the drum kit before the end of the concert, which is always rad.

My favorite moments of the night were, of course the tracks off Worlds Apart and Source Tags and Codes. I wanted to record "How Near How Far," so I could relive the awesomeness forever but decided to put my camera down and just rock out instead. The consolation prize/video is pretty sweet though. Here's Source Tags' "It Was There That I Saw You," with Conrad fucking up Jason's guitar that he's using prompting them to play the song again from the beginning. HA. Good times.