Sevendust at Mill City Nights, Minneapolis (03 August 2016)

Red Tide Rising

Denver’s Red Tide Rising (not to be confused with Red Sun Rising) opened up the show, playing a couple of tracks from their third album The Rising… however their industrial metal cover version of Tears For Fears’ ‘Mad World’ was probably the highlight of their 30-minute set for me. You can tell the band have a deep love for the song (or at least the Gary Jules version which appeared in Donnie Darko… which you tell singer Matthew Whiteman loved that movie via his skeleton shirt) and even did a weird mashup using Howard Beale’s “Mad As Hell” speech from Network (1976) to precede the song.

Crobot

Next up was Pennsylvania’s Crobot, currently signed to Wind-Up Records. The band’s music (a bit funk, a bit southern rock, a bit hard) didn’t quite sound like Sevendust’s heavy metal sound. The band (Brandon Yeagley, Chris Bishop, Jake Figueroa and Paul Figueroa) used that to their advantage, by winning over the audience with their Matthew McConaughey’s “alright, alright, alright” charm and singer (and harmonica player) Brandon Yeagley moved and dance like a hypnotizing snake.



The band actually previewed some songs from a forthcoming album Welcome To Fat City, expected to land on September 23, 2016, including ‘Easy Money’ (played as second song), new single ‘Not For Sale’ (third song), and the title track ‘Welcome To Fat City’.



Unfortunately, their set was plagued with crackling audio problem (which you can hear when Yeagley hit the high notes).
The sound engineers didn’t actually fix the problem until midset with ‘Blood On The Snow’.



With millions of albums sold since their self-titled debut (produced by Twisted Sister’s Jay Jay French), Sevendust blew away the heavy metal / trash / alternative metal scene in the late 90’s with hits like ‘Black’, ‘My Ruin’, and ‘Bitch’.



For various reasons (death in the family tragedies), primary band members leaving (particularly Clint Lowery), the band stepped away from the music scene… only to come back stronger with Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow, the title which perfectly described the band’s rollercoaster story.



With their latest Kill the Flaw, the album is really a testimony of the band’s struggles. That old saying, “What doesn’t kill you” is reflected in singer Lajon Witherspoon’s description of the title of the album: “We’re just trying to kill those flaws. People are trying to keep us down and I think it’s made us stronger. The song ‘Thank You’ kind of goes back to that. It’s the angst, to strive and to motivate us to continue.”



It’s that hopeful attitude that kept the band going, and, of course, Sevendust opened their show at Mill City Nights with that message of ‘Thank You’.



The crowd started moshing shortly after ‘Shine’ started and continued until ‘Denial’, which was slowed down because the band stripped it down to an acoustic rendition.



There’s something to be said about Sevendust’s optimistic views, and we’re happy to see that they are still surviving after 20 years.