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Band:He Is Legend Album:Suck out the Poison Record Company:Solid State Review by: The Vish Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

March 26, 2007. The No Fear Tour featuring Killswitch Engage with Dragonforce, Chimaira and He is Legend at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, WA.

Venue doors opened at 6:00pm and my friend and I parked at the Seattle Convention Center at 5:45pm. There was a line that spanned a block and a half to the venue and my friend and I walked in line until we got to the doors… and then we saw the will-call booth. Duh! We should have walked up to the venue and found the will-call booth to begin with. My friend got her ticket and I got my photo-pass and we went to the back of the line, which was really short because security was doing a quick (but still thorough) job of getting everybody through. Once we got through security and I showed my photo-pass so that they could let me in with my camera, we got to the ticket agent and my friend got through and I showed my photo pass (because that is all that the will-call booth gave me). She couldn’t let me through until I had a ticket, so she had to talk to her superiors and the people in the will-call booth about why I didn’t have a ticket. After 10 minutes of waiting, I finally got my ticket and went on into the venue.

The Paramount is a landmark venue in Seattle and I had never been there before. What a beautiful theater! The walls and ceiling look like something out of the Vatican or Rome with everything covered in gorgeously sculpted designs. The general admission floor has generous space for lots of people to watch a show from. The balcony is high and I didn’t get to see much of it because the show was sold out and I wasn’t allowed to explore the area up there. It seemed like you could get a pretty nice view, unless you are in the nosebleed area. Sadly, that is where my friend had to sit.

6:45pm is when He Is Legend took the stage. I am not familiar with their music, but it rocked. Their singer had a lot of charisma and they rocked the house with a 20-25 minute set. Their singer moves around too much to take pictures of him, at least that’s the way it seemed to me. Sadly, all of my pictures of this band turned out to be total crap because I was working on getting used to taking pics of dudes running around and rocking out. I eventually got the hang of it, but not until later. They ended their set by splicing one of their own songs with Pantera’s “I’m Broken” which pumped me up quite a bit, being as Pantera has been my favorite band since I was 13.

Band:Chimaira Album:Resurrection Record Company:Ferret Music Photos: Click Here Click Album Cover To Buy Now

Next up was Chimaira who took the stage pretty quickly. I’m not sure what time, but I was excited to see them being as I have been listening to them for years and have always liked what they do. They sounded tight and definitely rocked. Compared with all of the other acts on the bill, though, they didn’t seem to have as much energy. It was kinda hard to take pics of them because all of their lighting was dark and they had smoke machines blowing smoke, which annoyed the hell out of me (smoke machine smoke smells bad!).

Band:Dragonforce Album:Inhuman Rampage Record Company:Roadrunner Records Photos: Click Here Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

After Chimaira was the band that I was most interested in seeing: Dragonforce. Not because they were my favorite band on the bill, but because I expected them to put on a great performance. Dragonforce delivered in spades. Holy-Christ-on-a-stick! Dragonforce is even more unbelievable live than they are with their studio work. The guitars were spot on with the leads. The guitarists were playing leads and drinking beer out of straws from their mic-stands at the same time. These guys were absolutely awesome when it came to taking pictures. They posed constantly in “metal” stances and made everybody in the venue have fun whether they wanted to or not. They were jumping off of trampolines and had fans blowing at the front of the stage to blow their hair so that they would look even more glorious while playing their triumphant power metal. This band is the real deal and I have never had so much fun watching a band.

Band:Killswitch Engage Album:As Daylight Dies Record Company:Roadrunner Records Photos: Click Here Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

Killswitch Engage, the headliner, was next and the whole crowd erupted when they took the stage. They played a full set and made sure everybody present knew why they were the headlining act. The only thing that I was disappointed about was that Adam Dutkiewicz wasn’t there playing guitar. I wondered why and when I got home, I read that he has been sidelined with a back surgery. In spite of my disappointment about Adam, I was thrilled to see Pat Lachman (Damageplan, Halford) taking over. Halfway through their set, while I was shooting pictures from the side of the stage, my hands got sweaty and I dropped and broke my camera. That bummed me out extremely. I have scrounged up enough money to get a better camera, though, so at least I’ll still be able to do photos at shows. After their set, they came back for an encore and played Dio’s “Holy Diver” which was awesome and also a great song to close out a show.

All-in-all, this was a fun as hell show with damn good bands at a really nice venue. I had a ton of fun and took a lot of good pictures and enjoyed every second of it. I’m still pissed that my camera broke, but shit happens. One other thing: the security guys were really cool and made sure I didn’t get my head kicked in by a crowd surfer or anything like that when I was taking pictures up in front of the stage. All of those guys should get raises!

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