The Viper Room is a small club venue on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. The venue is well known for being previously owned by Johnny Depp from 1993 till 2004, as well as the location of River Phoenix’s death back in 1993. From the beginning it has always been the home for a lot of great metal and rock shows. As a last minute addition, Soulfly decided to close out their tour at this venue.
First to take the stage was Lody Kong, featuring two of Max Cavalera’s bloody seeds; Igor (guitar/vocals) and Zyon (drums) Cavalera. At first sight you would think that it’s a teenybopper band, but as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover! This young band was filled with energy as they delivered on every song. At certain points, their style was reminiscent to a heavier version of Nirvana as they seemed to mix trash metal sounds along with some grunge. This band might be young, but they have a bright future ahead of them in the music industry; as they keep growing as artists. Cavalera’s sons definitely did him proud as the talent just seems to run in the family.
Next up was thrash metal band Havok from Denver, Colorado. Recently closing out their own headlining tour in the US, they came back in support to Soulfly. If you never caught these guys play before you are definitely missing out as they are a great band to catch live; always bringing the energy, acting out their songs through hand gestures or facial expressions, and always condemning massive pits. On this night they did not disappoint!
Pete Webber is like the Roadrunner on his drums – “meep meep”! At certain times it looked like smoke was rising from his drum kit from how fast he was playing, and their actually might have been a little flame trail as he walked off stage at the closing of the band’s set. David Sanchez did an awesome job introducing each song with awesome background stories, following up with great vocal deliverance, as well as flawless guitar. Reece Scruggs had some sick as hell guitar riffage going on and his hand gestures, such as bear claws, amongst other things added awesome effects to the songs. Michael Leon’s bass playing will eventually go down in history as one of the most entertaining bassist to watch live on stage. This guy goes bananas with his slap bass techniques and his facial expressions are off the top!
The highlight of Havok’s set was when they invited Max Cavalera to join them on stage and they couldn’t have picked a better song to perform together, “Give Me Liberty…or Give Me Death.” The crowd went nuts on this because not only is this song the most brutal from their latest album Unnatural Selection, but they were also in the presence of one of the metal gods! Havok, as always, put on a memorable performance and everyone is excited to see what they have in store for all of us in the future.
Emerging behind a skeleton microphone stand, it was finally time for Max “No Introduction Needed Here” Cavalera and Soulfly. Accompanied by his son, Zyon, who was working double duty tonight with two bands. This kid definitely came back out with even more energy than before making him worthy of performing with the greats such as his dad Max (Cavalera Conspiracy /ex Sepultura), Marc Rizzo (Cavalera Conspiracy /ex Ill Niño) and Tony Campos (Ex -Ministry, ex-Static X).
The crowd greeted the band with a pit as soon as the first song, “Bloodshed”, started. Throughout the set Max commanded everyone to jump or to start crazy circle pits, which they followed his every order. Tonight the crowd was crazier than watching a home team play soccer in Brazil. They chanted and sang along with every song played by Soulfly that night, even the Portuguese/Spanish lyrics in “El Comegente” from their new album Savages. This song is about a cannibal from the 80’s in Venezuela, Dorangel Vargas. The band played a good variety of old and new songs, including a song that they later dedicated to Havok, and a couple Sepultura covers like ”Bloody Roots”. They closed out their show with “Eye for an Eye”.
This was an amazing show with some great bands closing out their tour. The audience that complained about the cost of the tickets being too high definitely left knowing that their money was well spent. This was definitely a memorable night thanks to Lody Kong, Havok, and Soulfly!
Written by Karina Parker
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