Dillinger Escape Plan – Kings Arms October 25, 2017

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Some crowds make you feel like a poser through nothing but sheer adoration. Such was the crowd that packed out the King’s Arms front to back last night for The Dillinger Escape Plan. For me, one those bands I’d always been aware and appreciative of, but never compelled to delve deeply into. Plonked amongst a raging, surging crowd that seemed to know almost every word of the lyrics, I felt very much like I’d been missing out. Considering this was Dillinger’s last ever New Zealand show, before a planned and amicable break up, I was better late than never to see one of the most intense live acts out there.

For me it was a night of converting the fence-sitter to the faithful. Opening act Blindfolded and Led to the Woods are a Christchurch metal band that play a strange, complex blend of genres. I’d listened to some of their studio output and not quite known what to make of it, but they didn’t take long to impress me live. I wasn’t alone either, as the crowd went from listening with half an ear to pressing forward towards the stage in attention and cheering for each song. These guys played fast, weird rhythms and riffs that somehow remained catchy enough to bang your head to. The impact wasn’t in recognisable hooks, but in keeping the audience in a state of pleasant disorientation, as the band shifted through blinding transitions and breakdowns.

For all the sound was chaotic, you could tell the songs were meticulously arranged. It showed in the perfectly placed snare snap into a single beat of silence from the rest of the band, and the little perfectly placed squalls of feedback. Those little moments of finesse were crucial in leading us from one bizarre riff to another. My only complaint was that while the bottom end had plenty of stomach churning impact, it sometimes swallowed the details of the complex lead guitar work. Nevertheless there was no denying the talent on display here, and Blindfolded closed their set to a wall of pounding distortion and a fully converted crowd.

The already crowded bar only packed out more and more as it neared the time for The Dillinger Escape Plan to take the stage. The excitement was pressing heavy along with the heat of pressed together bodies, and it all exploded the second the band launched into their set. This is an admission of failure for a reviewer, but if you weren’t there, it really is impossible to convey to you the raw intensity and aggression that immediately swept between band and crowd and back again.

It just kept going, too, for three songs without letup, as the band thrashed their instruments, the guitarists performing leaping air kicks off the drum sets and speakers, singer Greg Puciatio screaming his heart out while leaning out over the crowd to gesticulate and slap reaching hands. The crowd responded as if the band’s intensity were a challenge, leaping up and down, rushing the stage, stage diving, crowd surfing, and above all forming some of the most frenetic mosh pits I’ve witnessed.

It took those first few songs for me to pull myself out of the melee, to watch as the band transitioned into material that was just slightly more measured and melodic. The setlist was masterfully curated, with a pitch perfect gauge of when to ease of the gas slightly, when to bring back the full aggression, and how long to sustain it for.

Musically the band were damn near perfect, showing not only impressively technical chops but a versatility that encompassed everything from anthemic choruses with big bold power riffs, to chopped up stop-start breakdowns pulled off with impeccable timing. Puciato in particular impressed with the range of his singing styles, whether full-throated screams or clean mids or falsetto. Sadly again, the only marring element was technical, with one of the guitars having repeated problems in the mix, so much so that at one point the frustrated guitarist (I think it was Kevin Antreassian) offered a thousand dollars for someone to punch his guitar tech in the balls.

The fans didn’t care a bit for such petty issues though. The emotions between crowd and the band felt intimate and real, willingly entered into by the members whose appreciation for their followers was completely authentic. Lead guitarist Ben Weinman leaped backward to perform one solo on the raised hands on the front rows, and during the encore Puciato crowd surfed all the way to the back. In the middle of the song, suspended, he took the time to tell his fans how much he would miss them. The crowd certainly took this last show to prove to The Dillinger Escape Plan how much they would be missed. Bittersweet as it was for the long time fans, I’m only glad I was there. Had I not gone, I would have had no idea how badly I’d missed out.

Cameron Miller

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