Municipal Waste with Cauldron

Municipal Waste with Cauldron
Date: 11/19/09
Place: Key Club, West Hollywood CA
Review by ~ Aniruddh 'Andrew' Bansal

Cauldron opened the night with their short 30-minute set. They played some high quality thrash metal and I was very impressed with their performance, specially the front man Jason Decay. They are relatively new, starting out in 2006, but they are surely taking the right steps by supporting Municipal Waste on tour and I am sure we'll hear and see a lot more of this band in the years to come.

Municipal Waste kicked off their set in front of a packed Key Club at around 9.30. They opened with the song 'Unleash The Bastards' from the Hazardous Mutation album. It sent the crowd into a frenzy! I had heard all about how crazy Municipal Waste shows are and about the ridiculous number of stage divers in their shows. I didn't get to see any of that when I saw them open for Lamb Of God back in April, but this was their own show and what I was about to see can be truly experienced only at a Municipal Waste headline gig!

They brought out a new song after this, 'Divine Blasphemer' from the latest album Massive Aggressive. It was as enjoyable as any of their older material. The hugely popular 'Beer Pressure' followed. The vocalist Tony Foresta was doing a great job at getting the crowd even more excited than it already was. He was head-banging, jumping and running all over the stage and also leaning into the crowd to sing and have them sing into the mic. Everyone was having a great time!

They continued with this true thrash fest with songs like 'Mental Shock', 'Blood Drive' and 'Accelerated Vision'. This is one band for whom the set list does not matter at all, because its almost obvious that their fans are always going to have a great time head banging, moshing and stage diving regardless of what songs are being played. But even then, I thought they did an excellent selection of their songs, mixing in the older songs while also promoting the latest album. In the remaining part of the set, they played three more new songs, 'Wrong Answer', 'Masked By Delirium' and 'Acid Sentence'.

In addition to the stage divers and mosher's, there were also people who jumped off the little walls that separated the floor area from the seats. What a sight it was to see people literally flying everywhere! I myself was tempted to take a plunge but decided against it in order to protect my camera, and due to the sheer fact that the mosh pits for the mighty Waste are a little too crazy even for a guy like me. After they played 'Masked By Delirium', a guy dressed as Santa came on stage with a beer bong to add to all the fun. This was followed by what turned out to be the highlight of the show for me. The bassist Philip was hooked to a trapeze-like thing and got lifted several feet in the air! To see something like this at a small club venue is beyond anything I had expected. He did his bass solo moving back and forth at that height and you'll definitely need to look at the pictures to see for yourself what I'm talking about!

They ended their short set with the songs 'Born To Party', 'Guilty Of Being Tight', 'Open Your Mind' and the amazing 'Headbanger Face Rip'. In terms of duration the set was pretty short, clocking close to an hour, but I'm pretty sure that all fans would be satisfied with this. With the kind of energy and excitement involved in their show, I doubt that any fan could last more than an hour without passing out! Overall, one of the most energetic shows I have ever seen, and with this kind of performance, the band has ensured that its cult following will continue to grow.

Here's their complete set list:

1. Intro/Unleash The Bastards
2. Divine Blasphemer
3. Beer Pressure
4. Mental Shock
5. Blood Drive/Accelerated Vision
6. Wrong Answer
7. Terror Shark
8. Masked By Delirium
9. Bass solo/Sadistic Magician
10. Thrashin' Of The Christ
11. Mutants Of War/Toxic Revolution
12. Black Ice
13. Kill The President
14. Acid Sentence
15. Born To Party
16 .Guilty Of Being Tight
17. Open Your Mind
18. Headbanger Face Rip

Visit Municipal Waste online - Click here !

INTERVIEW WITH RYAN BY ANDREW

Andrew: You're headlining here in the US after a long time. How do you feel about that and how is it going so far?

Ryan: I feel its about time because we've been doing a lot of support gigs and its about we came back and played these smaller clubs for our own fans. So we are excited. Its been going very well so far. The crowd reactions are as good as always, plus a lot of stage diving and slamming out there.

Andrew: It must be great to have your own fans for a change.

Ryan: Of course its always more fun doing your own headlining gig because its on your own terms and everything.

Andrew: Your shows are so crazy with people stage diving all the time. Did you ever get hit really badly?

Ryan: Yeah I had my teeth tripped out when the microphone hit my teeth and because I sing and play guitar, I can't really use my hands to stop it. So kids would run into the mic stand and push it right into my mouth. I get bloody lips and teeth but its all part of playing in a heavy band.

Andrew: I heard a funny story recently. Your show in Houston got flooded but you guys kept playing. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ryan: Yeah actually it got flooded before we played and then they were going to cancel the show. All the kids were hanging around and we were like. 'What are we gonna do?' Everyone just stayed there and kept supporting us so we said lets go move into another room and we just played a different room in another club. They just let kids in for free, those who weren't even at the show before, and it actually turned out to be a bigger show than originally scheduled. So it was definitely one for the record books. The place was flooded and someone was hanging off a pipe so yeah it got pretty crazy. SO yeah the show turned out even better for us. So may be more people should do that! (laughs)

Andrew: The new album Massive Aggressive came out three months back. How is it going in terms of the sales and general response?

Ryan: I haven't checked on the sales lately, but I know its been going just as strong as ever. I mean, we are all proud of the record so I think the kids are catching on, we are playing some new ones live and everyone has responded really well to them. So I think it's a success for sure.

Andrew: Touring-wise how would you sum up this year of 2009 and what can you look forward to in the coming months?

Ryan: We've been going all year, like we always do. We've been in Europe four times this year already. So we are trying to focus on the States right now and to give back to them all over here and in Canada. But in the near future, next year we are going down to South America and playing Brazil, Peru and Mexico and stuff. So we are going to do that in the spring and in May we are going to Japan for the first time. The European tour is before all of that in January. The European tour is kinda part of this Waste The World tour, so we are headlining on Massive Aggressive in Europe in January as well. So we'll be busy!

Andrew: You've been in the band since the start. So how did the name Municipal Waste come up?

Ryan: I was actually driving down the street and a trash truck was pulling up next to me. I was going to a show in my car and I looked over, it was a trash truck. It looked so nasty and it just hit my brain that it's a great band name. I was just starting this new project and just kinda ran it by the drummer and he was like yeah its perfect. That's the waste man, people call it 'the waste' so it caught on really quick.

Andrew: What did you think about the show with Lamb Of God at the Palladium this year, their music and their fans being so different from yours?

Ryan: It was a tough sell to be playing this fast in front of crowds that aren't used to that kind of speed, specially in bigger rooms like that. But we overcame that and I think we turned some people on to us who had probably never heard of us. So we toughed it out and now we are here doing our own thing. So it worked out!

Andrew: You've had this band going for almost nine years. What do you think of some of the newer thrash bands?

Ryan: I'm a little out of the loop on that. I definitely always give props to Toxic Holocaust and there's a couple of bands overseas who I think are pretty solid but I'm still stuck with some old heavy metal records and that's what is influencing me these days.

Andrew: Wherever you guys play, the venue gets torn up. So is it hard to book shows for you sometimes and have you been banned from any venue?

Ryan: We've been banned from a few places. We can't play in Gilman street in the bay area, which is fine. We've been there, done that. But yeah I think the clubs do realize that its not the band but the fans who are doing it so it doesn't really come back down on us so much. Some places actually like the rowdiness and there are definitely some cool clubs. We'll see how it goes tonight and how they are going to react to people jumping and everything.

Andrew: Ryan, thanks for your time and have a great show!

Ryan: Thanks man!