Rock and Metal Concert 4/10/09: Who Did the Best and Who Was a Mess?

The concert that everyone had been waiting months for in Lubbock, TX, was that of Buckcherry and Avenged Sevenfold with guest performances by Papa Roach and Rev Theory on April 10, 2009. It was a warm day with with the possibility of getting down the the 40's that night with an outdoor venue, but with every one being held together tightly in the pit, the temperature didn't make much of a difference. The line started an hour or more before the doors opened and was about a mile long full of people with different backgrounds, styles, young, and old. If you knew someone you cut in line with them and if not you walked all the way to the back hoping that you wouldn't fry by the time you got to the front.

Doors opened at 5:30 PM and the opening band took stage around 6:30. The opener was the band Rev Theory, formally known as Revelation Theory. Few seemed to know who this band was besides those who had seen their music video for their hit Light It Up, which was also used as the theme song for this years Wrestle Mania. The performance was great!! Those who knew the band sang along, those who didn't caught on after a chorus or too and joined in. No one was crowd surfing or moshing during the performance, but the band had great stage presence and even got out amongst the crowd right after they performed and after the concert to sell their own CD and talk to the fans. They even threw out their guitar picks and drum sticks after the show. They seemed to be really nice, the lead singer got sick during the show so he wasn't signing after the concert.

The next performance that got most of the crowd pumped up and singing along to every song was Papa Roach. Jacoby Shaddix has the best stage presence out of all of the bands combined. He gets the crowd involved and has some crazy facial expressions while performs. They played songs from Infest, Getting Away With Murder, LoveHateTragedy, and their new CD Metamorphosis. Some in the front even got a little shower from Jacoby spitting his water out over the crowd. They two threw out their picks and sticks to the crowd. The crowd surfing and even a bit of moshing started up big time during this performance. When the band walked of stage that was the last the crowd saw of them.

Up next was Buckcherry to rock the stage. Front man Josh Todd attracted young teens, adults, and middle age women alike to the pit for a sexy provocative performance. The music was awesome live and Josh Todd knows how to get to a woman's heart. He is exceptionally good at holding eye contact with different woman through out the show. One things for sure, no one under 16 or 17 had a right to be at that part of the show. With all of the sexual innuendos made and the close to porn anime showing up on the screen during Crazy Bitch, I would have been embarrassed to bring a young kid to see them. They got the crowd involved and singing along probably more than Papa Roach did and even showed some skin in the middle until the end of the show. The crowd surfers were even going during the ballads and the mosh got even bigger at times. Again picks and sticks went flying and the crowd went crazy when they announced the next band.

Set up for Avenged Sevenfold also called A7X took about 25 to 30 min. When the organs for Critical Acclaim began and the band came out on stage the crowd went completely wild! There was little crowd involvement besides a vote on whether to perform Gunslinger or Chapter 4 and telling us what an awesome state TX was. Lead guitarist Synyster Gates (Brian Haner Jr.) had some crowd involvement when the rest of the band went back stage to warm up and what everyone assumed they were doing to change a couple songs due to the cold weather. Syn was on stage doing his own solos for about 10 min. drinking Jack Daniels, until the band finally came back to the stage to finish the show. Everyone knew all of the words and lead singer M. Shadows (Matthew Sanders) even started a circle pit during one song. Due to what we believe to be complications of cold weather they were unable to perform their hit A Little Piece Of Heaven, because of it being to cold to play the organ. They threw the picks and sticks like everyone else, and even when everyone was chanting for an encore, we never saw them again.

Overall the show was really good. Most people wished there would have been a bit more crowd involvement and signing of autographs from the bigger bands, but they were satisfied with the performances. Overall the audience was more into Avenged Sevenfold's performance than the others, but would have to be awarded with second worst stage presence. Papa Roach had the best stage presence, and Rev Theory had the best try at getting the crowd involved. Buckcherry had the worst stage presence but made up for it with the crazy things they said and did while on stage. If you have a chance check all of these bands out live and find out for yourself.