The Wake

In this day and age, it’s no wonder that a fictional animated metal band can blow away an audience. That’s exactly what Dethklok, the band featured in the show “Metalocalypse” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, did on Wednesday Nov. 7 in the Great Hall at Coffman Union. Despite being billed as the opening act for …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Dethklok not only stole the main time slot but proved to deliver mind-numbing metal as good as any metal act today. Every aspect of the show was torturously, exhilaratingly brutal.

Getting into the concert was ridiculously painful. It turns out that on the official Metalocalypse website there was a ticket section hidden away where people could sign up for tickets to the show. 800 tickets were given out over the Internet, and those who were lucky enough to find the site got a star bracelet for the show, which would let them wander in and out of the venue. However, the Great Hall only has a capacity of 700 at concerts. Needless to say, everyone in the chump line (which is, coincidently enough, where The Wake was) became very angry. There was nothing on any advertisements that said people needed to go to the website in order to get free tickets for this concert, which was billed as a free event. This setback ended well because most of the people who had reserved tickets online did not show up.

The first band to play was…Trail of Dead. As one might suspect from their name, they didn’t look happy during their performance. Although they’ve been around the rock music scene for several years, they played like they were going to kill someone. This is probably due to the fact that although they received top billing on the advertisements for the Adult Swim tour, they were in fact opening for a fictional band. Once 7:30 p.m. rolled around, they couldn’t get off the stage fast enough.

It didn’t matter to the crowd. Most of them had come to see the real version of Dethklok. The band consists of legendary drummer Gene Hoglan, lead guitarist Mike Keneally, bassist Bryan Bellers, and lead singer and guitarist Brendon Small, the show’s creator.

Dethklok opened with the show’s theme song, immediately creating a mosh pit in the front area, despite many signs forbidding moshing. Like many death metal acts, the band refused to be lit on stage, instead preferring sparse lighting. The band took the experience further by providing three Jumbotrons, each playing a music video to whatever song they were playing. They also played what seems like an exclusive episode of the show for the crowd between song intervals, involving the audience by creating a plot that Dethklok was to be assassinated at the show. The audience ate it up, crowding in and banging their heads to a cacophony of pure hate-filled metal.

“Mustakrakish” came next, and hell broke loose among the crowd. Whoever wasn’t moshing in the front was thrashing in the middle, with the back section banging their heads in time. An ever-growing amount of devil horns were thrown into the air. It continued like this for the entire show, even after the Deathklok’s double encoure. Of course, the fan-favorite song of the set was “ThunderHorse,” a three-minute exercise in dizzying guitarist solos that left the front section blown away from moshing.

Even after the closing hit “Fansong,” the crowd was left wanting more. Everyone looked shell-shocked with pleasure after walking out of Coffman. It seemed there was a common sentiment among the crowd:

“I went to a Dethklok concert. And survived.”