The Black Dahlia Murder & Nile @ The House of Blues, Hollywood. 4/5/12.

Shrines to Madness

The Black Dahlia Murder are one of my favorite bands around. They played an awesome show last week that I was luckily enough to attend (got someone to cover my shift at work just in time!). I've written about them SEVERAL times on this here blog in the past so feel free to catch up if needed.
Anyways, about the concert. We arrived late and missed the opening band Hour of Penance and caught the last two songs from Skeletonwitch. This bummed me out because I've never seen Hour of Penance before and since they're from Italy, they don't frequent the United States so often. Skeletonwitch is also an amazingly fun live act and wished I could have seen more from them.

Luckily Nile came out and made everything just peachy. You might remember them from January's Crunch Time installment. They made the best of their brief 40 minute set, pretty much playing at least one track from each of their albums. Of course the highlight of their set was "Sarcophagus." Like I said in that Crunch Time post that song is RIDICULOUSLY heavy. Can't wait for Nile to come back and headline on their own.


The Black Dahlia Murder came out and the place went nuts. Again. Like usual. Happens all the time man. I wish all my favorite bands could be as huge/successful as these guys. 10 years ago (FUCK I'm getting old) there was only a handful of people, myself included, stoked to watch them opening for Arch Enemy and Hate Eternal at The Troubadour...these days they headline/sell out The House of Blues! In fact, I've seen BDM and Nile tour together before. In 2004, Dahlia went on before Nile when they supported King Diamond. Now Nile goes on before them! I'm getting all nostalgic for bands I still like...wtf?

Either way, Black Dahlia Murder slayed. They played a lot of newer stuff off Ritual and the crowd of perpetual teenagers ate it up. Their setlist consisted of songs from their last 3 albums aka the "Shannon Lucas Era." I don't blame them though, he's arguably the best thing to ever happen to this band and will be featured in my DrumTHRONE series in the near future. They ended the night with "Unhallowed/Funeral Thirst" of their debut album for us old timers. It was awesome...or "cray" or whatever kids say nowadays.

Here's BDM playing "Necropolis": enjoy!


*I knew their bass player Bart was sitting out this tour so I wasn't worried when I saw the buff dude from Despised Icon (R.I.P.) filling in for him on stage. I wasn't expecting to see Bart standing around the sound board after the show chilling with the old singer from The Faceless. Please don't retire Bart. You have a cool name and always make me laugh on Black Dahlia DVDs.