Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Boogaloo / Zagreb / Croatia
Concert date: 17.06.2009
Attendance: 700
Ticket price: 190,00HRK
“Modern” American “groove” metallers Disturbed already sold out Zagreb’s Boogaloo club completely last year. Almost exactly a year later, they came back to the scene of the crime. It was the only club show of the band’s European summer run, which is otherwise built mostly around festival appearances. Disturbed, who’ve had their fourth consecutive studio album “Indestructible” (2008) in their pocket for a good year now, are kicking up a lot of dust on the market right now, especially among the teenage rabble, who sent their latest album straight back to number one on America’s Billboard 200 albums chart a week after release. After “Believe” and “Ten Thousand Fists”, that’s the third consecutive studio album from the band to pull it off.
This time the party in Boogaloo only got going at nine in the evening. Outside the club, and inside too, the crowd was making a hell of a racket. Anticipation was huge and turnout was very healthy. It wasn’t completely sold out, but it was brutally hot and tense. MellowToy – besides being a soft toy and Italian – jumped in as the band in charge of warming the teenyboppers up into a proper working lather. At the announced hour the sextet started painting a picture of some kind of “screamo” emo-core mishmash on stage. Lower-tuned guitars, simple, trivial riffs, emphasis on the rhythmic backbone. Two kids prowl the stage. A skinny “squirrel” in charge of the shrieking, and his somewhat heftier buddy – if we’re looking for a partner for the squirrel, maybe a “marmot” would do – who tried to inject some “melodicism” with clean vocals mixed with screaming. Well, okay. The two singers took on that game of swaggering black caricatures you run into in the sugary rap videos on MTV, and tried to fire up the crowd with those borrowed moves. The crowd gave in mostly to the distortion and the avalanche of riffing from the two guitars. Early on the crowd made plenty of noise, and it felt like MellowToy were big stars and not just yet another wannabe band that shoots high while delivering low musical goods. In half an hour the guys showed a fair few textbook mistakes, starting with the two singers glancing at each other several times and gulping at thin air, since they didn’t know exactly who was supposed to take which verses. Luckily everything was crunching so hard that you couldn’t even hear the mistakes in the riffing. The bass was flintily too loud. People were into it at first, but for the last ten minutes they mostly just stoically counted down the clock. Half an hour of hollow, forgettable MellowToy was more than too much.
Disturbed started at exactly ten p.m. By now an entirely standard opening, with Draiman in his “Silence of the Lambs” muzzle while two techs free him from the straitjacket. What does that have to do with Genesis, besides the song Land Of Confusion? Until Draiman takes the muzzle off, the observer can’t be sure whether it’s really Draiman under there, or just Phil Collins. Astonishing resemblance. Luckily Collins doesn’t wear piercings (at least not yet). The hall, which was properly packed, jumped up as one when the band opened the show straight with Voices from the debut studio album “The Sickness” (2000). It’s hard to put together a Disturbed setlist without hits.
It was interesting to weigh up what the band offers in return for its fame and commercial success. First of all, very bad sound, in which the bass badly drowned out the lower-pitched tone of Dan Donegan’s massive riffing. That sound ruled especially right up front, where Draiman was too quiet or barely audible at all, all the way back to 5-6 meters from the stage, while at the back (by the mixing desk) things came out somewhat better. Second, just an hour and 15 minutes of playing (encore included). And then there’s the ticket price, for which in February this year you could, for example, see Saxon and Iced Earth together in Zagreb – bands who have command of their trade, as far as musical know-how goes, on an incomparably higher level. It would be worth considering adding another guitarist to the band, since Disturbed would squeeze even more energy out of themselves, tighten the ranks into an even more compact and unified unit that cuts through its material a notch more mercilessly and so more convincingly, more truthfully!
But… the question is whether people (concertgoers, fans of the band) deserve more. No. They’re simply happy with what Disturbed offer. The hall shook and burst at the seams as Disturbed strung together hit after hit with little effort. It looked like the audience was singing and playing instead of the band. The band’s popularity is simply unbelievable. Then Draiman himself knows how to drop a “brotherly” line like “You are my blood…” and suck you in with the feels. The boys know their stuff. Dreadlocks, tattoos, piercings. Everything that belongs in “groove” distorted droning today. So Disturbed have figured out that with half-baked musical know-how, a half-baked live offering and some innate talent, they can pull in as much commercial-success money as the pioneers of rock and metal pulled in, say, 20 years ago, while those pioneers put much more creative effort into their output and into performing their own material live. Today Disturbed cover a Tears For Fears or Genesis hit, set a grooved-up curtain of riffing guitars behind it, and that’s entirely enough.
Disturbed did get the job done with the distinction of a big band. They played correctly, confidently, without mistakes, and justified their status and reputation in Zagreb too. A somewhat weaker link at times was David Draiman himself, who needed a bit more of a breather, e.g. after the Genesis cover Land Of Confusion, but otherwise, as said. The crowd ate out of his hand, obediently following his every gesture, every call to sing along with him,… The energy in the hall was right. The chemistry between crowd and band worked at a high level, though you felt throughout that Disturbed were saving their energy. Thanks to an ecstatic crowd that literally beat each other up in intense “mosh pits” below the stage through the closing stretch of The Game, Inside The Fire, Stricken and Ten Thousand Fists, the regular set flew by. The band comes back, the crowd goes nuts, and the party goes on through Indestructible, where the crowd again follows Draiman on vocals with all its might. Next comes filler, or time-stealing, in the form of an uninteresting drum solo. Well, at least we could confirm that the drums were tuned excellently and that it was the bass guitar that spoiled the band’s sound this time at their Zagreb show. The band closed with the album The Sickness, tackling what is perhaps still one of the biggest hits of their career, Down with the Sickness, and with it, soaring on the wings of the frenzied crowd, ended the show with a point of excellent earthquake-like jolt of released energy. That somehow delivered the peak of the evening with Disturbed. Just as ordered, right in the closing stretch.
Another successful concert. Everyone was rubbing their hands: the band, the fans and of course the promoter. A spoiled “outside” observer of my caliber did feel mildly cheated, but didn’t fret too much about it. Compared with, say, The Killers, who fleeced their hosts in Slovenia a few days ago at an astronomically inflated price, Disturbed are still a real innocent little chick when it comes to the calculated, rational shrinking of what bands offer live these days. Most people left the venue pleased and more than satisfied. That’s enough. Lately bands, as a rule, just travel right past Slovenia. Luckily Zagreb, with its excellent concert offering, is always close at hand.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Voices 2. Liberate 3. Just Stop 4. Prayer 5. Meaning of Life 6. Land of Confusion 7. Remember 8. Stupify 9. Medley of Hell (Shout 2000/Criminal/Deify) 10. The Night 11. The Game 12. Inside the Fire 13. Stricken 14. Ten Thousand Fists —encore— 15. Indestructible 16. Drum solo 17. Down with the Sickness
Photo Gallery
