Soulfly

Soulfly
Date: 09/30/09
Place: Key Club, Los Angeles CA
Review By ~ Aniruddh (Andrew) Bansal

Soulfly kicked off their set at 10.45 with the first song Blood Fire War Hate which is also the opening song on the most recent album Conquer. It was m first time seeing Max Cavalera perform, and I was excited to say the least! The song got the crowd jumping up and down like crazy. The title song of the Prophecy album followed it and got a great reaction from this highly energetic young crowd. It was time for a couple of older songs, the title song of Primitive and the song Seek N Strike from the -3 album.

Then came the awesome Refuse/Resist. Doom and Paranoia from the Conquer album followed. From what I saw tonight, I can safely say that Soulfly is one of the very few bands who get a good crowd reaction even when they play the newest songs from their catalog. Usually the crowds want the older stuff and are more familiar with it. Not the case with Soulfly apparently! In fact, I thought the Conquer songs were the best songs in the entire set and after this show I would be definitely inclined to listen more to those songs at home.

The song Molotov was played next, followed by Joe Nunez's drum solo. I always love drum solos. Its always a fun time when the crowd starts reacting and participating in cheering on the drummer in solos. This led into the next song No Hope No Fear which also had a teaser of Slayer's Raining Blood, something which brought everyone to cheer really loudly. Then the band discarded their guitars and bass for the tribal drums in Tribe. Mars came after this. Another Conquer song Unleash was played, leading into the awesome Troops.

They closed the set with a few more amazing songs like Warmageddon, Frontlines, Roots and Eye For An Eye. The crowd were really into it tonight. It was after a long time that I saw such a passionate crowd. Everyone was jumping together because of which the Key Club was shaking. Max Cavalera did his usual 'Un! Dos! Tres!' to kick off many of the songs. He also got the crowd to chant 'Ole Ole Ole Soulfly' in true Brazilian style. He is obviously a proud Brazilian, judging from those national flags on stage. The mosh pits, crowd surfers and stage divers were in full force tonight. I commend the security for handling these to perfection, making sure that no one got hurt. Although I didn't participate in it myself because I had to protect my camera, the wall of death was amazing to witness. Max's performance and stage performance was just awesome. Marc Rizzo and Bobby Burns did well of the guitar and bass respectively, adding their own stage presence as well. They all complimented Max very well, letting him take the center stage and spotlight for the most part of it. Kudos to Max Cavalera and Soulfly! Horns up!!

Here's the complete set list in order:

1. Blood Fire War Hate
2. Prophecy
3. Primitive
4. Seek N Strike
5. Refuse
6. Doom
7. Paranoia
8. Molotov
9. Drum solo
10. No Hope No Fear (w/ Raining Blood teaser)
11. Tribe
12. Mars
13. Unleash
14. Troops
15. Warmageddon
16. Frontlines
17. Roots
18. Eye For An Eye (ended with Creeping Death teaser)