Pit Report: Protest the Hero

     I told you it was coming eventually, and now here it is, my pit report for last Sunday's Protest the Hero show here in Kingston. Now that I've had some time to ruminate on the experience, you're going to get the complete rundown. It'll be like you were there!

     Let me start by saying I felt like a bit of a fanboy at this show. When I heard about this Protest mini-tour, with this line-up, I was beyond stoked. I've only known about/been into Mandroid Echostar and Pomegranate Tiger for a little bit (at least compared to being a Protest the Hero fan for the better part of a decade) but having already interviewed the one opener (Mandroid) and having wanted to do the other for a while (Pomegranate) at the time that I heard about the show, I couldn't miss this one.

     I did, however, make a miscalculation on the actual evening of the show. As I think I've mentioned here before, when I was younger we usually skipped the opening acts at concerts unless we already had a pretty good idea who they were. This is a habit I'm slowly trying to get out of, since discovering new music is kinda what I do around here, but either way I certainly wasn't going to skip out on any of the opening festivities for this one. So I figured, doors at 7, do a little math, and we should be able to show up at 7:30 or 7:45 and just walk right in. It's a little club show, right?

      Not so. Well, yes, it was a little club show, but no, my clever timing calculations didn't work out. The doors didn't open until 8 or after, and we didn't get in until a while after that. So despite my best efforts, the evening began with an unfortunate amount of standing around and being more than likely the oldest person lined up for the show.

     But things started looking up as soon as we got inside. I've never really been the starstruck, autograph-seeking type, but within the first half-hour or so of the show (before things got started and then into Pomegranate Tiger's set) I'd scored the John Hancocks of both of Protest's guitarists Luke and Tim. On top of that, I had the chance to meet Mike from Mandroid and thank him for doing the Twenty Questions with me a while back.

     Anyways, back to the whole point: the badass metal show. First up was Pomegranate Tiger, who had the crowd pretty into it despite being the first opener and an instrumental act. I don't know how many people (can I say kids without unfairly generalizing? probably) in the audience knew PT beforehand, but you'd be forgiven for thinking that they were indeed very familiar with Pomegranate's jams, such was their enthusiasm. If the crowd was already aware of Pomegranate Tiger, then I guess I'm impressed with the number of people in Kingston who seem to be that into them, and if they weren't cognizant of PT already, I'm similarly impressed with PT's ability to fucking bring it to an unsuspecting audience. Well done.

     Next up was Mandroid Echostar, a band whose presence and general tightness really speaks to the fact that they've been playing some shows and honing their chops. The band's got three guitarists, two of whom spend a good amount of time shredding out some tasty leads, and all three are rock solid across the varied material that Mandroid plays. If they play it on the record, they can play it live. Likewise, the aforementioned Michael Ciccia has plenty of range, and sounds great on record, but also doesn't sacrifice any of that range or any of his power in a live setting.

     And then, of course, there's Protest the Hero. What can I say about Protest's live show that I haven't said before? I've seen Protest three or four times now, and I would see them again any chance I get. As usual, the boys played a decent mix of old and new stuff, although also as usual, not a lot of love for debut LP Kezia (one track, or maybe two, if I recall correctly). But realistically, after the rest of the evening, a good set from Protest the Hero was almost icing in the cake.

     All in all, despite the slow start, and the fact that I had to work at 4 AM the next morning, it was a pretty sweet night. I really hope that any and all of these bands make it back to Kingston sooner rather than later, because the convenience of being able to take in three great metal acts in your own backyard just can't be beat. I highly suggest you try it sometime.