The Dillinger Escape Plan are an insane live band! There is really no other way to put it. Anyone who has ever attended a Dillinger show is already aware of that fact. So it was no surprise that the anticipation was so thick before they took the stage that one could hardly breathe. As the strobe tests exposed the faces around me, I saw as much distress as I did joy. Everyone was excited, but that excitement was polluted with a healthy dose of trepidation. The metalheads to my right were making fun of the ‘Portlandia’ hipsters to my left; the punk in front of me was predicting the setlist, while his friend was ignoring him and chanting ‘come on, come on, come on’ in a way that made me almost uncomfortable; the Steve Jobs lookalike behind me seemed completely out of place, but he also seemed like the calmest person in the crowd; the drunk girl next to me dropped her PBR tallboy, but I lost sight of her (and everyone else around me) before it hit the ground. Dillinger had taken the stage and somehow I had been transported a good 30 feet against my will. The metalheads, the punks, Steve Jobs and the clumsy girl were nowhere to be found. I was now among the faceless. All my senses were on alert as I dodged flying body parts. A leg went soaring past my head as I caught someone’s skull and passed it to the outstretched arms behind me. I was shoved sideways just in time to miss the guy who dove off the stacked amps. Half of me was on the stage with the band, while the other half had a swirling pit at my back. I eventually found myself in a calm pocket for just long enough to look up at Greg Puciato’s face as he was screaming “Fuck you, now try to disbelieve it!!!'”. And then we were both back in the crowd — me with my feet on the ground, Puciato sailing across an unstable sea of bones on a boat made of hands.

The scene I have described above could be taken from any number of punk or metal shows I have attended over the years, but there are a few things that make Dillinger different. First, the strobe lights. It’s not often that you have non-stop strobe lights at a metal show. As if being slammed around in a circle pit for an hour isn’t disorienting enough, Dillinger make sure that every half of every second is spent in darkness, while the other half is spent in blinding light. Then there’s the music. This isn’t your average metalcore with the chug-chug-chug breakdown chug-chug-chug chorus. As much as that format can get repetitive and generic, it allows for a certain method to the madness when it comes to the pit. Dillinger will allow that shit to chug on for an undetermined amount of time, but then they’ll crash it into a fucking wall and walk away. They will be laughing at the carnage as they speed off in a completely different direction, leaving you dazed and confused and trying to catch up. Even if you know every song and have their path mapped out in your mind, you’re not the only one on this road, so there’s no way of avoiding being blindsided by some metalhead who lost his shoe…or worse, some clumsy girl who lost her PBR.

Last time I saw Dillinger they were headlining the Summer Slaughter Tour at the Ogden Theatre. That set was so unhinged that I wondered if they would ever be allowed to play there again. So I was extremely curious to see how they would bring that same light show and intensity to the tiny stage at the Marquis Theater. As it turns out, they just stacked the lights to the ceiling and extended the show into the crowd. At one point, during the tour-specific “Happiness is a Smile”, Ben Weinman walked across the crowd to the middle of the venue and performed the rest of the song from his own human platform. This was not the first (and would not be the last) time when the line was blurred between band and audience. I really wasn’t sure if the Marquis would be a good venue for a Dillinger performance, but as long as you’re ok with the band literally walking all over you, it was the perfect venue!

The set was heavy on One of Us is the Killer material, but they threw in enough older stuff to keep everyone happy. The title track from the new album gave everyone (except for those in the main pit) a quick moment to catch their breath, and to sing-along with the chorus, but Puciato (along with his exploding veins) wasn’t about to let things calm down. “I wanna see a pit, don’t fuck around!” From that point forward, nowhere was safe. You either rode it out or you crafted an escape plan of your own. I made it until the end of “When I Lost My Bet” before working my way to the back. I listened to the encore (in a pool of my own sweat) from the merch booth…just hoping that I’d lasted longer than Steve Jobs.

Taking the openers into account, this show had one of the most diverse line-ups in recent memory. Vattnet Viskar, atmospheric defenders of the environment and all things metal, opened the night with a brief, yet fervid set. The four-piece band from New Hampshire managed to present a sampling of the many styles and sounds that made last year’s Sky Swallower such a spectacular (and uncategorizable) listen — all within the boundaries of their thirty minute set time. It took some planning to be able to arrive early enough to catch their performance, but I’m glad I made the effort. The few who were in attendance can attest to the fact that it was one of the finest opening sets from any extreme act this year. The fact that it led into Tera Melos is the bizarre part.

There is a big difference between Vattnet Viskar’s free-flowing blackened doom and The Dillinger Escape Plan’s precision mathcore, but they might as well be two sides to the same coin when compared to Sacramento’s Tera Melos. The band specializes in a form of progressive rock with twisted time signatures, but sometimes they veer off the track to take the audience for a joyride into the world of jazz and post-rock. From a technical standpoint, I can see where they might find common ground with Ben Weinman and crew, but from a delivery standpoint they couldn’t be more different. I had seen Tera Melos before, and as much as I appreciate what they do, I decided to head down Larimer to grab a bite and a beer (or four) at Star Bar during their set.

By the time I got back to Marquis, the place was packed! There was no clear path to the stage, so I settled for listening to Kadavar’s set from the bar. The only thing visible from my position was flying hair. Unfamiliar with this German band, it was immediately evident that they were partial to the sounds of the 70’s. Like Uncle Acid, Purson, and even The Sword in some sense, these guys were more hard rock than heavy metal. I only caught the last part of their set, and although the crowd seemed to be really into them, I just wasn’t high (at all) enough to find myself at one with their groove. They weren’t bad by any means, but they just seemed like an odd choice to get the crowd warmed up for Dillinger.

Setlist:
Prancer
Farewell, Mona Lisa
Milk Lizard
43% Burnt
Panasonic Youth
Room Full of Eyes
Happiness Is a Smile
Hero of the Soviet Union
Nothing’s Funny
Understanding Decay
One of Us Is the Killer
Crossburner
Good Neighbor
When I Lost My Bet

The Mullet Burden
Come to Daddy (Aphex Twin)
Sunshine the Werewolf