The Dillinger Escape Plan

I reckon The Dillinger Escape Plan are one of the greatest bands of all time, and seeing them play in 2005 at the Corner Hotel was one of the greatest gigs I've ever been to. I had no idea what to expect beforehand. Since their music is so fast and complex I thought they were likely to be a bunch of shoe-gazers, just staring at the ground and furiously concentrating on what they were playing. But no, they very much the opposite. Nothing could have prepared me for the frenzy of energy once DEP hit the stage.

It was one of those shows where from the very moment they started playing — as the place was enveloped by a massive wall of sound — I knew it would be an absolutely awesome show. And it was. They were amazing, but what made it so much more impressive was how amazing they played while not standing still for a second. I have never seen a band with more energy on stage. They all jumped around on stage and all but climbed the walls, yet managed to nail every single note! Then still relatively new lead singer Greg Puciato's menacing stage presence was perfectly suited for the music, violently screaming out the lyrics. While both the energy and musicianship from the rest of the band was incredibly impressive. It was an absolutely amazing gig.

So it was with high expectations that I went to see them again last Friday, this time at the venue formerly known as The Metro, now known as The Palace. Although I really wasn't expecting them to be any better than that time at The Corner — and they weren't. They were still great, just not quite as great (despite tickets costing almost twice as much!).

Part of it was probably the venue. The were some sound issues at the start. As they got on stage, I was waiting to be greeted by the glorious wall of Dillinger sound. Instead, what I got was a muddy mess. There was lots of energy and frantic jumping around happening on stage by the band members, but all the audience could hear for most of the first song was a muddy, indistinct rumble.

There was a sense of deja vu about this for me, because it actually reminded me of the Slayer show at Vodafone Arena last year. As I came in during the set of support act Mastodon, I was struck by what an awesome sound they had. But when Slayer came out, once again it was a muddy indistinct mess, and it wasn't until about 3 or 4 songs into the show that the sound issues were finally resolved. (By that point I was contemplating leaving — really didn't seem to be much point sticking around if the sound continued to be that bad!) While in both cases the sound issues did eventually get fixed, it made for a very anti-climatic opening to the set. This despite the best efforts of the bands, which played well and picked good opening songs. And in the case of Dillinger, they certainly hit the stage with heaps of energy.

However, the crowd seemed to take a while to warm up to Dillinger — the sound issues probably didn't help, although it definitely wasn't because of lack of energy from the band. There was much violent, frenzied jumping around and gyrating on stage, and eventually I think the crowd was won over. So much so that the lack of an encore was a disappointment, with many standing around afterwards hoping for more. If leaving everyone wanting more is a sign of a successful show, then it was definitely a success.

While the punters were trying to work out whether there would be an encore, the crew were trying to work out how to retrieve the microphone that the lead singer had thrown up and managed to get stuck in the lighting rig during the last song. As I was leaving a big burly bloke wearing an official looking T-shirt went up to one of the guys on the door.

"The lead singer got the microphone stuck in the lighting rig," he said, not sounding at all happy.

"How the fuck did he do that?" was the annoyed reply from the guy on the door.

The big burly guy walked off, possibly to have some words with said lead singer, or possibly just planning the logistics of retrieving said microphone.