Concert review: Fear Factory LIVE at the Culture Room

Fear Factory NEVER fails me.

Everyone who knows me knows that while I am a music aficionado to the max there are maybe a handful of bands/artists who I truly invest my time into financially and physically in terms of seeing them live no many how many times they are in town to perform.

Fear Factory is definitely one of them.

For those who know me especially, I don't claim to be a "metal head" cause God knows I hate labels. I do love hard rock/metal music and have been passionate about that genre for at least 15 years. Weird being an African-American man you don't see much guys on my side of the fence with that kind of affinity for that genre of music.

But then again most people don't know the strength and power of this band.

I don't know how many times I've seen FF play LIVE (somewhere between 8-11) in the last 8 years. But they seem to get better with age and last night was no different.

Opening up with the first 3 songs straight off my favorite LP 'Obsolete' they came out and crushed the Culture Room with Shock/Edgecrusher/Smasher Devourer.

The pattern I found through this show unlike other times seeing them live was this was the first time I've seen Fear Factory perform BEFORE an album release. Normally when you see a band live and they're already months beyond the album's birth you get to hear maybe 2-3 new songs. Long time fans were not disappointed though cause even though they played their new single "Recharger" in the middle of the set Fear Factory stuck to an old school set (minus material from Archetype/Transgression). 

But we wont go there. Too much band drama for one blog.

They continued the set with 2-3 songs off of Digimortal, 3 songs off Demanufacture (crushed it with Self Bias Resister) and of course the classic "Martyr off their 1992 debut "Soul Of a New Machine" before closing with their biggest hit "Replica" off of Obsolete (my personal favorite LP). 

Funniest moment of the show was when guitarist Dino Cazeres asked the crowd "what happened to the Heat"? Of course he was referring to the Miami Heat losing Game 4 to the Knicks hours before.

Of course the South Florida natives booed him for that comment.

All in all a tremendous performance by the band who are yet going through another lineup change. New bassist in Matt DeVries of Chimaira fame and a temp drummer replacing the great Gene Hoglan.

Whatever the case is, Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazeres is good enough to keep this legendary band going. I don't know how much juice this band left in them seeing they've been doing this for 20 years but whatever it is they are still strong and their sound continues to keep metal fans like myself happy and satisfied.

Legends in their own right.




Shoutout to my wife Lauren for attending the show with me and my homeboy James for another Fear Factory adventure. Here is the video of the opening number 'Shock' he filmed.