Municipal Waste and High on Fire tear through Greenville, NC with a hardcore punk and metal show for the ages.
Greenville, NC was lit on fire with a four-band bill headlined by Municipal Waste and High on Fire. Greenville, NC is home to a strong metal community with dedicated local promoters who work hard to pull tours like this into town. Perhaps this tour has been performed at venues with more attendees but the energy and enthusiasm from this crowd was second to none.
Los Angeles-based Early Moods kicked off the evening. Early Moods didn’t care that practically no one in the room knew them or had heard their music before, they took the stage as if they were the headliner and played their asses off. Led by vocalist Alberto Alcaraz, who echoes the voice and swagger of an early Robert Plant, the band delivered a high-intensity doomy yet groovy metal show. All band members are technical and good musicians. Even when using a borrowed drum kit from GEL for the performance, Early Moods had a level of energy and showmanship above what you hear on their well-produced self-titled album released in 2022. Early Moods are yet another example of why the opening bands should never be missed.
Next up was GEL, a hardcore punk band hailing from New Jersey. Since 2018, GEL has released a number of EPs, singles, and appeared on a compilation album so still relatively new but many in the audience were clearly fans. Upon entering the stage, several members of the band were smiling and clearly excited to be there. They looked so, nice. When vocalist Sami stepped on stage and the band started up, it wasn’t more than an instant before the venue floor filled up and started going hard. GEL pulls forward the raw, cutting hardcore musical style without all the schtick and it works. GEL got The State Theatre whipped up and moshing in anticipation of what came next. Co-headliner Municipal Waste came on stage to a huge roar of excitement from the nearly 400 in attendance. Kicking off with “Demoralizer,” Municipal Waste ignited wall-to-wall mosh pits and headbanging. Lead vocalist Tony Foresta sounded raw, almost painful in how scratchy his voice was, but that didn’t diminish his power nor command over the audience. Twenty years after their formation, the band controlled the stage like veterans and showed love and appreciation for the audience coming out to see them as if they were brand new.During Municipal Waste’s set, The State Theatre security team showed why they are the best in the business. Crowd surfers made it to the front and climbed onto the stage before theatrically diving back into writhing mosh pits. Tony repeatedly reached out and helped several surfers reach the stage and security let everything unfold under their watchful eye with only those who lingered on stage getting the security boot. Kudos to the band and security, this show was exactly what punk rock and metal are all about; bands and fans bonding over music without borders. Appropriately closing with “Born to Party” after pulling out a relative rarity of “Poison the Preacher,” Municipal Waste showed up and f-ed up Greenville, NC in the most awesome way.
High on Fire is a Grammy-winning, electrifying, 1000-horsepower engine of metal intensity. Fronted by Matt Pike on guitar, Jeff Matz on bass, and Coady Willis on drums, this trio on a stage containing nothing other than stacks of Orange amplifiers absolutely demolished The State Theatre. High on Fire is all musical business, they put their heads down for a 12-song set and didn’t give anyone even a moment to breathe until they were done. Starting with “Turk” and including crowd favorites “Fury Whip” and “Speedwolf,” moshing transformed into headbanging and the energy in the room increased to incendiary highs under the hot red stage lights. Every band on this tour was individually excellent and performed a fantastic show. What made this a fantastic tour was the chemistry among the bands. As every band performed, there were members of at least two of the other bands standing on the side stage watching. Early Moods jumped off the stage and crowd-surfed throughout Municipal Waste’s set. Even short tours can be gueling but all four bands were fresh and excited to perform, most likely because of the support and fun they were having with their tour mates. Fantastic job to whoever pulled this collection of bands together, it was a tremendous show that begs to be repeated.HIGH ON FIRE
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