The Ancient video is amazing. I love how he stays 'in character' even in between songs. A few favorite moments: "Can you hear them.....Can YOU hear them" "This is not a band.........this one's called Black Funeral..waaaaaao" "We're a bit underrehearsed" "Dramatic pause"

Not metal, but Ratt's performance at Monsters of Rock 2013 is hilarious because of Stephen Pearcy's voice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH-OBFKFSgM

Have a look at their Wacken performance for even greater hilarity; Byron's running around with a jacket and baseball cap delivering lyrics like "This stellar starborn FUCKIN' power!" I'm guessing the surge in popularity just went to his head and he tried too hard at the rockstar thing before realizing it, as he returned to his armor-wearing epic fantasy stage presence shortly afterward.



Given that 3/5 of the band is working on a very Bal-Sagoth-sounding project (Kull), and Byron has been teasing these expanded universe comics/maps/cards/julienne fry makers for 7 years now without producing anything, I sort of got the impression Byron's just being a lazy bum and the rest of the band was getting impatient. The keyboardist from Alestorm suggested something along those lines here once as well. I really hope they get back to releasing stuff at some point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrxeHr_s868

vital remains again, but with a different drummer. ive seen em with the drummer that replaced this guy and the new singer, and they got their shit together better live now

Wow. That sucked with a capital S. Scott Wily really was an awful vocalist.

Still, despite the slowing down and inability to do the double bass properly, Eddy Hoffman was a fuckton better drummer than Alberto Allende. Also, as righteous as Jack Blackburn is, I wish they'd get Kaish from Gigan to drum for them again.

I like how he casually turns the amp off. My work here is done.

HA! What the hell?!

I lasted 1:35 into that Ratt video. Sad and lame and pretty damn funny.

HAha, that was pretty bad... But NOTHING compared to Sebasian Bach singing 18 And Life at Rock In Rio 2013 AHHAHAH!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8w1pzmXH_I

3:40 HAHAHAHAH
And the whole part in the end what the hell ...... At least he succeeds in making the best Miss Piggy impression ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y84gW_5ZFKE

Technically the overall performance is alright, but any atmosphere/worth this song has is killed by the sunny/sterile stadium environment and then shat on by Maniac and his complete lack of taste or ability. His stage antics are completely idiotic in my opinion, the pig head and random Voldo weapon are not doing anything for me, I just have to roll my eyes. His vocals also suck, no surprise there. A disgrace imo.

Well to be fair he had to have been drunk as shit by that point.

I like how his speaking voice is both louder and stronger than his singing voice. Or that which used to be his singing voice in this case.

True maybe, but in the perspective of the fans, they paid for a good show. Not precooked menudo

Wow, that RATT video was really embarrassing, I had to shut it off. I know these guys are old and shit, but you can tell that they just don't have the passion anymore. And that Sebastien Bach one? Oh man, what is with him? Is he high? He looks like a fucking wax statue. Again, it just sounds like these guys even give a shit enough to practice. Yeah, maybe they can't hit some of the higher notes, but they can still do better than that.

They opened for Vader earlier in the year and I thought they were pretty good.

I was watching some live vids of Arch/Matheos *cough-FW-cough* and stumbled upon Tateryche's pro shot from past october:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ0M5kPKVHw

... This guy used to be one of the greatest singers around, not he's just a mere shadow of himself! yet he's not the major problem here, his live band FUCKING SUCKS!!!

Another one I saw after that, also terrible IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LavZr9jyXCA

^^

Jesus, God, that first song, the keyboardist is faking playing that intro (which must be running through the keyboard on a sequencer or something) and with the camera dead set on his fingers, he just stops moving his fingers and it continues (not to mention he wasn't hitting the notes right when he was "playing") then the keyboard intro goes on for 10 seconds too long and Tate gets thrown off when he is supposed to come in. Way to ruin the performance's atmosphere before even starting.

Almost sounds like he could have been using a sustain pedal, but I haven't actually watched the video yet..... wife's got the tv blaring and my headphones are missing

edit: Nevermind, I just watched it......

All Black Metal performances are retarded to me ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQvhf5maWU

Musically Deafheaven are quite capable. But this particular live show is soooo awkward. BM in button up dress shirts is hard enough to pull off, but the singers performance is so over dramatic and then you see the crowd just staring off as if they are in church or something. It almost looks like a PTA conference at a public school.

I love how right after he starts singing the microphone falls off the stand and is just dangling there while he keeps on doing his thing. Then the mic unplugs and he starts screaming to the crowd inaudibly until he fixes it about 10 seconds later. Between that and the crowd completely not understanding or caring about what's going on onstage, that clip is pretty funny.

Why is that band considered black metal? That's obviously some kind of post-rock stuff.

The vocalist's performance is definitely awful.

They've gotten much better live since then. They still do Roads to Judah songs, but it's nowhere near as awkward and goofy as that clip.

What do you want them to do? Wall of death?

1

Just saying it looks as if the crowd is out of place with the music.

Yeah I agree that they aren't really bm, but that is what most of their fans associate their sound with.

Okay... I have several questions about this ridiculous performance:
1.What's with the awful lighting? Is it a concert or a cockfight?
2.Why's the singer not using the mic half the time? He's just screaming over the music at the audience like he's watching someone get killed and can't do anything about it.
3.Why does the band look so sweaty and exhausted? They are barely moving yet they look like they're about to conk out.
4.What's with the wardrobe? Looks like they asked the staff from The Gap if they wanted to play in a metal band during their lunch hour.

Hilarious video, though!

Ambient DSBM? I cant understand the lyrics but that's what the atmosphere sounds like

Incredibly petty things to criticize a band for. "Why are they so sweaty/tired looking/wearing X?" Dno, maybe it's hot in there, or they're just really out of breath because they were late to the show and had to run from the graduation party they were at before. Who gives a shit?

Definitely crap lightning though, but might just be the venue rather than a deliberate choice done by the band. Some venues are like that.

It's post-black metal, but now I want to hear a band that does ambient DSBM. As for the lyrics:



Nowhere near as inane as the lyrics on Sunbather are.

Hmmmm.... yeah I'm going with ambient DSBM

Now compare those lyrics with the title track from Sunbather.

Yeah, the lyrics on Sunbather are really the only negative thing about the album. They're about, as BastardHead put it in his own review, inane shit. Even the band's explanation about the album's lyrics is intensely stupid.



Basically it's all derived from when the band's singer ogled a hot topless chick sitting outside on a lawn during the spring when he was a kid. No, I'm not making that up.

Yeah, I don`t really see what`s so bad about the Deafheaven performance, other than the terrible lighting. What do you want them to do? Stand still, power stance while headbanging? And making fun of their wardrobe? They looks like regular white guys, what`s the big deal?

The actual performance from the band wasn't anything to cringe at. They did their part well enough outside of the singer just kind of being in his own little world most of the time. It was outside factors like the shitty lighting, the microphone dangling off the stand before breaking as the singer doesn't notice, and the crowd almost completely not caring that made that video funny.

I think it was explained fairly well what's wrong with the performance. Did you miss that, or why aren't you addressing it? I thought it was a very poor performance because of the vocalist's overdramatic gesticulation, goofing around with the microphone (such as when the mic dangles from the stand for a few seconds, or when he screams at the audience without using the microphone at all.

As far as the venue goes, that kind of an environment easily ruins any atmosphere the gig would otherwise have. The audience is sitting on chairs, which at least doesn't quite work with metal shows, and the lighting is definitely inappropriate. The exaggerated excitement in the performance of the singer makes a comical contrast with the sitting, fairly uninterested audience.

Yeah, the crowd`s reaction is pretty odd, although I`ve seen this reaction before. Were Deafheaven popular around this time? I can only imagine that maybe everyone was there to see someone else and so didn`t know the songs? I have no idea how popular Road to Judah was so I could be way off, haha.

And Ilwhyan, I got all that, I just disagree with you. The vocalists antics don`t bother me at all (including microphone silliness). Like I said, to me, the only thing that was terrible about it was the lighting (they must have run out of money putting the show on or something). The crowds reaction, or lack thereof, was shitty, but that doesn`t really have much to do with judging the actual band`s performance. So all in all, I see what you are seeing, I acknowledge your assessment, and I disagree.

And if we must compare this with a much better Deafheaven performance...



Appropriate lighting (although the black and white masks what the venue really looked like during the show), the singer's not being a melodramatic doofus, and the crowd actually cares and is into the music.

As for their popularity at the time, they were nowhere near as known then as they are now. Their EP and Roads to Judah got respectable coverage from the usual metal sites and blogs, but Sunbather was their big break.