Gojira and Mastodon opened up some serious mosh pits on the floor of the Oncenter War Memorial Sunday evening, delivering a four-hour mania of metal.
The floor was buzzing throughout opener Lorna Shore’s set, as many fans crowd-surfed, moshed, and banged their heads to the screaming songs. As the openers finished at 7:45 p.m., a massive black veil the width of the stage descended from the ceiling to the floor, bearing Gojira’s splattered logo in huge white letters. At 8 p.m., audience chants for these metal masters from France surged, then all at once, the curtain came down, and the flames went up.
Three vertical flamethrowers on each side of the stage alternated between vomiting columns of fire and spewing huge fireballs, a real spectacle in an indoor venue. The band’s sound was just as bright and intense, inspiring even more raucous activity from fans on the floor before the stage, some of whom crowd-surfed to the point of removal by security.
With songs like “Back Bone,” Gojira’s hefty, spine-tingling music showcased endless rolls of bass drum triplets and stellar guitar solos, resulting in a true wall of sound. At one point, drummer Mario Duplantier ripped through a fun drum solo, then held up a handmade sign reading “I CAN’T HEAR YOU” as he amped up the crowd for the next song – and it’s a wonder he can hear anything at all after sitting in the epicenter of such a thunderous barrage.
Throughout the show, animated videos played behind the band, including a fun depiction of the band as astronauts during “Another World,” which sees the band leave Earth, travel space, and land on a mysterious planet only to stumble upon a crumbling, ivy-covered Eiffel Tower. Another standout performance was “Amazonia,” which singer Joe Duplantier dedicated to the indigenous people of the Amazon.
The highlights of Gojira’s set came right at the end, when Duplantier asked the crowd for help in singing the next song, “The Chant.” Like a heavy metal…
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