I don’t know how well you know me, but if you do, you know that I’m a big fan of playing roulette. And if you know me you also know that – not to yank own chain to hard – I’m pretty fucking good at it! Over the years, I’ve developed a simple system based on basic probability and mathematics that, with time, patience and a conservative betting strategy means that 99% of the time I’ll walk out with more money in my pocket than I walked in with. I’m not talking about massive jackpots that set off lights and bells and have casino officials thrusting paperwork in one’s lap before being allowed to leave the premises. But, let’s just say that the discussion between myself and Mrs. KSP about me quitting my job and playing roulette full or part time has been bandied about our household.
What does any of this have to do with one of the biggest and most exciting extreme music package tours of the young year? Not a lot until you discover that the newly renovated, 4500 capacity Theatre at Great Canadian Resort is part of an entertainment complex tucked up near the airport in the northwest corner of Toronto that now includes on the land of the legendary Woodbine horse race track, a concert hall, pricey restaurants and food options, a luxurious hotel and, you guessed it, a casino. A casino yours truly had to walk straight through to get to the show because I mistakenly parked on the opposite side of the complex. A casino yours truly was forced — by my own lack of willpower, mind you — to wander around before finding a roulette table and settling in. By the time I extracted myself from said casino floor, I discovered that not only was my wallet a bit fatter, but that I had also missed Carcass’ set entirely.
I don’t know how well you know me, but if you do, you know that I’m not a big fan of big shows. Not that I am the type to whine about or begrudge any band for achieving the amount of popularity that moves them to the next level, but no one can deny a vast amount of live show intimacy is lost when you move to a venue the size of most residential neighbourhoods. And it’s not just the security moving you along and telling you that you can’t stand here and can’t hang out there, or the fully-armed cops manning the entrance/exit. It’s also that extreme music, more often than not, experiences a difficult sonic translation when moved into a space with three story-high ceilings and balconies that are themselves the size of some of the venues these three bands have previously played throughout the course of their careers. But you know what? Cannibal Corpse’s adaptation to the surroundings and situation was more than admirable. They’re a band that, over the years, has been forced to make the jump from clubs to the biggest outdoor festival stages to concert halls to amphitheaters with all stops in between, sometimes over the course of the same or subsequent tours.
The earthquaking chug of “Scourge of Iron” and the demoniacal trills of “Evisceration Plague” survived with definition and oomph, but in wandering around the floor space in search of the optimum sound mix, the discovery was that the relative mid-paced sections in “Blood Blind,” “Inhumane Harvest” and “Unleashing the Bloodthirst” came across with much more air-pushing wallop than the songs’ more uptempo sections, which often got lost in the rafters. I can’t imagine what the people in the balcony nosebleeds were hearing, but maybe it was fine and all my imagination because there weren’t many disappointed faces following the time-worn outro triptych of “I Cum Blood,” “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” and “Hammer Smashed Face.”
I don’t know how well you know me, but if you do, you know that my favourite albums by the Swedish rhythmic institution/force of nature known as Meshuggah are their first three. Not to sound like ‘that guy,’ but in the case of Umeå’s most beloved sons, I’m ‘that guy’ and my attention started wavering shortly after Nothing. That’s not to say ObZen isn’t comprised of oodles of classic moments, but I haven’t been compelled to fully focus on Meshuggah’s doings and transpirings for a while, despite the fact that a good portion of metal-dom disagrees as they’re obviously bigger than ever at present. But hey, they’re selling Destroy Erase Improve long sleeve shirts, so maybe their past and the curmudgeonly portion of their fanbase aren’t being totally ignored? To be perfectly honest, however, when they whipped out “Future Breed Machine” for the unofficial “last song of the night” it appeared to receive the biggest reaction of the set. And, curiously, the song’s rawer, more balls-out thrashing energy was accompanied by a more restrained light show; the opposite of what had been happening to that point. About that light show…good goddamn! I don’t know if the band is traveling with a trailer full of transformers and generators or a portable nuclear reactor, but whatever was going onstage could have lit up a small town. Their heavy syncopation and exacting rhythmic complexity was matched on-point by blazing spot lights, sweeping streams, pulsing strobes and a whole bunch of other lighting shit I know nothing about as retinas in every nook and cranny of the room were scalded in every colour of the rainbow while the band mostly stood bolted in position, swaying to the groove and let the illumination be the show. And then there were the frickin’ awesome-looking Tron-like grid lasers that consumed and blanketed the room in sync with the martial patterning of “Violent Sleep of Reason” and “Dancers to a Discordant System.”
The display was as overwhelming as it brilliantly made complete use of the ample stage and venue space to flood senses to the point another patron and I remarked to each other, “It’s good thing neither of us have epilepsy, I hope.” The same platitudes can be directed towards the definition and crunch of the sound, which hardly suffered from the wash, echo and bouncing that bottom heavy brutality in a venue the size can play havoc with. The pacing that had them going from “Kaleidoscope” to “God He Sees in Mirrors” to “Lethargica” and “Born in Dissonance” made the dynamic between down-tuned body rumbling sustain and halting odd-time chunking to space age soloing and new age soaring more of a journey than a beatdown, though you can really hear how easy it is for Jens Kidman’s vocal phrasing to fall out of lock step and clutter a composition with clumsiness. My favorite part was still witnessing them come to life during the propulsive energetic drive of Destroy Erase Improve’s lead-off track. Which is probably the sort of thing you expect to hear from a crotchety old man who uses casino winnings to buy merch and is seriously thinking about heading back there tomorrow to see Loverboy and Quiet Riot play the same stage.
All photos by Keith Ibbitson, Metal Paparazzi Concert Photography
The post Live Review: Meshuggah/Cannibal Corpse/Carcass – Theatre at Great Canadian Resort, Toronto 3/29/25 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.