Between The Buried And Me Perform To A Sold Out Santa Ana, CA

Between the Buried and Me
July 21, 2015
The Observatory- Santa Ana, CA

Between the Buried and Me and Animals As Leaders are two of the most popular progressive metal bands out right now so it’s no surprise that the two bands joined forces for a massive 33-date run across the USA. One of those stops was at The Observatory in Santa Ana, California and this was a special night because it was a SOLD OUT show!

Animals As Leaders are still a young band with their third album The Joy of Motion that came out in 2014. Unlike traditional bands, Animals As Leaders are strictly an instrumental band so they let their music do all the talking. Animals As Leaders came out to an already packed venue and started the show with Tooth and Claw from their newest album. One would think that just because this band is instrumental that the crowd would more or less be still or not that ecstatic. Anyone thinking that was quickly proven wrong as a mosh pit in the middle of the floor broke out and crowd surfers started making appearances. Also unlike most bands, this band only consists of three members which include guitarists Tosin and Javier and they’re backed by drummer Matt. Songs on their setlist included: Mind-Spun, Para Mexer, Another Year, and The Woven Web so they had a nice mix of material from their three albums. Their music is an interesting blend of a variety of different sounds. One song they’ll play has an electronic influence, then the next will have a jazz feeling to it. A few songs even had Latin and dance-pop feels to them which the crowd happily jumped and danced to. Along with the music, Animals As Leaders had impressive strobe lights. The lights changed colors throughout the show and would move up and down, then side to side while changing colors. The crowd remained active with moshing and surfing up until Another Year from the new album was played. This is one of the songs with a jazz sound to it and the crowd just stared in awe and would clap along to certain parts. Following that song, they played another new song called, The Woven Web. This was another electronic-influenced song and sounded almost like background music for a video game. It had a fast enough pace to where the crowd became active again and resumed moshing and crowd surfing. The last song on their setlist was CAFO from their debut self-titled album. This was a lengthy song that lasted almost 7 minutes and gave the crowd the chance to let out more of their energy by moshing and crowd surfing as if they hadn’t had enough of this talented band. Animals As Leaders finished their set, left the stage, and paved the way for the headliner of the night.

Between the Buried and Me is one of today’s most talented bands and with their seventh studio album Coma Ecliptic album that was just released on July 10, 2015, they were ready to bring their talent and skills to show everyone that they’re only getting better with each album release! The band came on stage as a fully-packed venue erupted into a roar as each member took their place on stage and started with Selkies: The Endless Obsession. Frontman Tommy Rogers shows his musicianship by simultaneously singing clean vocals and playing the keyboard, then stepping away from the keyboard and alternating between clean and harsh vocals. They have a very strong stage presence and because of that, the crowd wasted no time in moshing and crowd surfing, showing that they weren’t tired from going crazy during Animals As Leader’s performance. Given that they’re a progressive metal band, Between the Buried and Me’s songs are long which meant they were going to have a short setlist. Regardless, their fans were happy with their setlist and were eager to see what else the band had in store for them. The second song was The Coma Machine from the new album. This song mainly revolves around clean vocals and the crowd loved singing along to the chorus “You teach us what was….you teach us what was!” The third song was Astral Body from the previous The Parallax II: Future Sequence album. Many people in the crowd cheered as that’s clearly a fan-favorite song and is one of the band’s normal-length songs yet delivers beautifully with a cosmic feeling. Followed by that was the continuation for Astral Body, Lay Your Ghosts to Rest which can only be described as a mini-symphony as Rogers would perform harsh vocals during the heavy part of the song then suddenly would switch to clean vocals while the rest of the band slowed down as well and went from a heavy song to sounding like progressive rock. Guitarist Paul Waggoner is a truly skilled guitar player as he seems to be able to play at various

speeds and different style of rock and metal. His fingers move crazily fast that it almost seems inhuman and you have to wonder how he does it. The band also had their own light show setup with strobe lights flashing everywhere, a large circular light right behind drummer Blake Richardson, and other random lights throughout their background which would shoot out smaller lights almost as if you were watching an alien spacecraft. Between the Buried and Me’s other song choices for the night included Memory Palace from the new album and Famine Wolf. It being close to the end of the show, Rogers asked the crowd, “Are we still good??” and of course the crowd screamed that they were ready for more. The band rewarded them with Ants of the Sky from their critically-acclaimed Colors album. The mosh pits got crazier and even one crowd surfer was flipped completely upside down in all the madness. The show ended with their popular song Prequel to the Sequel from the same Colors album and left the stage. The lights were still off; people were standing around waiting for something to happen. A few minutes later, guitarist Waggoner comes out and plays the intro vocals on his guitar to a very familiar classic rock song. Once the crowd caught on to what was happening, they immediately started singing along….”open your eyes, look up to the sky and seeee…” That’s right, Between the Buried and Me decided to come back for an encore to play Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Paul played the whole first verse on his guitar while the crowd sang along if they knew the words. Not until the lyrics “Mommaaa, oohh!” hit did Rogers come out and start singing the song and by then, the crowd was in full force singing the song too. Once the rock part of the song started, the band adds their progressive metal touch to the song and people start moshing to the song letting out any remaining energy they have. Things calmed down as the song came to an end and the crowd sang along with Rogers for the final verse “Nothing really matters…anyone can see. Nothing really matters…nothing really matters…to meeee. Anyway the wind blows”. The crowd let out the biggest cheer of the night and clearly felt they got their money’s worth as the band finished and left the stage which left fans wondering when they would be coming back.