Dillinger Escape Plan
Live at Cockpit on Monday, 29th November 2004
With their latest album "Miss Machine" combining freeform jazz-instrumental passages alongside breakneck metal workouts, it would be fair comment to say that the crowd for tonight's Dillinger Escape Plan gig consists of an eclectic cross-section of Leeds music followers. With both bands on the bill having appeared at the Carling Weekend in Leeds just a matter of months ago the venue is a sweaty cornucopia of bodies.
Poison the Well open tonight's proceedings with aplomb, their melody-tinged abrasive hardcore propelling the front section of the crowd into spasmodic bursts of movement. Although recently losing one of their founding members on guitar the band still manage to sound as tight as a camel's ass in a sandstorm with brutal metal moments a la Converge giving way to more peaceful mellisonant interludes. Although the setlist draws heavily on recent opus "You Come Before You" at the expense of earlier releases such as "Tear From the Red" songs such as "Pleasant Bullet" ignite the evening perfectly.
Throwing yourself around the stage for an hour in the manner of a hyperactive badger is never an easy task; however the members of Dillinger Escape Plan mange to pull it off throughout the duration of their set. It takes roughly around two minutes of their opening song for anyone watching to ascertain that this is a band that is pretty proficient at playing their instruments: seemingly every song has a variety of time changes and some ferocious fretboard frivolities from the two guitarists. However the band manages to prevent their songs from descending into a self-indulgent bastardised hybrid of ELO and Slayer by keeping their hardcore-punk ethos at the fore of their performance tonight.
Throwing a variety of different songs from their past releases into the mix tonight, highlights of the set include closer "Panasonic Youth" and the ferocious "43% Burnt". Throughout the show there appears to be just as many people standing watching the display of technical theatrics on display as there are throwing themselves manically into the pit, showing that this is a band that can be appreciated in a number of different ways. Great Stuff.