We wanted Phillip to enjoy himself (and not get killed), so we didn't ask him to take photos. We found this one with an image browsing agent. We couldn't find a credit, so if it's yours, please get in touch with us and we'll credit you, take it down or whatever.

I arrived late, and caught the last few minutes of opening act America Is Watching, whose abrasive post-punk sounds were quite conducive to violence and/or breaking the speed limit. The half-song I heard sounded good enough to me, and I did see one band member kick the crap out of another, so missing them was probably my loss. Then again, the other stuff they played could have sucked, so don't send me spiteful e-mails if you go to their show on my recommendation and are let down.

These first couple of paragraphs have been a bit nebulous, I'll admit -- but now I'm going to cut to the chase, so get your mouse-cursor off that "Back" button.

Trail of Dead walked out to much applause, and launched into "It Was There That I Saw You", with much of the audience singing along and enjoying themselves. Conrad Keely and Neil Busch swapped vocal and drumming duties every couple of songs, plowing through an assortment of the finer songs from their last album. It was almost like a Jekyll and Hyde act: Keely playing the earnest troubadour angsting his way through songs of disintegrated dreams with an almost spiritual longing for truth, and Busch as the epitome of all things punk rock, singing lyrics primarily concerned with smashing any- and everything to pieces. The live show really underscores the dichotomy between Trail of Dead's destructive and hopeful sides, and witnessing the differences in band members' temperaments and lyrics makes the coexistence of the two halves more plausible.

But enough philosophy. The band was clearly having fun. When Busch's guitar kept coming unplugged during "Days of Being Wild", he abandoned it and launched into a melodramatic diatribe about this "crazy world" where his guitar keeps coming unplugged, taking jabs at emo bands with his extraneous emoting about love, hate and puppy dogs, and getting a shot in at the hardcore kids with a crack about straight edge. The Jason Reece-led "Baudelaire" was a kinetic high point, and a gripping rendition of the chill-inducing "Half of What" was a nice revisit of one of the band's strongest older songs.

And then everything went spiraling down into a bonfire fueled by the most explosive drive to rock out I've ever seen. Trail of Dead launched into a medley of older material, improvising madly, pulling lyrics and melodies right out of thin air. There was no longer any use in dissecting the band's lyrical dynamic or their philosophical underpinnings; this was about seeing how loud, how wild, how depraved a guitar could sound and how insane a rock band could get. Words can't accurately describe the level of destruction and deconstruction, but I can tell you it's the only time I've ever seen anyone jam a mic against a fretboard to induce an overpowering wave of pink noise. There was lyrical torment, abused guitars and random screaming, and when the band broke from the madness to take an audience request, they couldn't have been asked to play a more inappropriate piece -- "Source Tags and Codes". After spending quite a long time tuning their guitars back to a somewhat normal level, the Trail obliged and played it, but it was near blasphemy to struggle through such a stirring, contemplative song in the wake of such a trashing, and Keely spent a great deal of time trying to convince the crowd that the song would lose a little something if they were to play it.

Much of the audience voiced an interest in hearing "Relative Ways", and while the request was ignored, Trail of Dead got a little more fan-friendly -- they invited everyone up on stage. Within moments, a mob crowded around the band to join them in a riotous rendition of "Richter Scale Madness", easily the most appropriate song for the moment. Of course, the security people were none too thrilled, and there were plenty of arguments and a little physicality, but nothing major, aside from a large girl busting her ass in front of everyone while attempting to dance. One audience member managed to stay throughout the entire finale, which consisted of more frenzied jamming, and an enthusiastic crowd cheered him on as he sat down behind the drums and methodically beat a cymbal over and over and over. The security guard casually walked up to him and tapped his shoulder in a cartoonish manner, but he continued to play, with band members egging him on and dousing him with water. Busch began screaming or dancing or doing something -- it all started to blur together after a while -- and Reece tackled him and the two engaged in some good, clean, mock homoerotic roughhousing. It was as fitting an end as any to a largely indescribable evening.

-- Phillip Buchan.