When I was in 9th grade, I missed the chance to see Mastodon perform Crack the Skye in its entirety. Such an album has made a massive impact on me growing up, it was a disappointment that I couldn’t go see them perform. A few years later and I missed another chance to see a full album performed in its entirety: Amon Amarth’s Surtur Rising. Part of their “Evening With” tour before they blew up to great heights on the following album, I ended up willingly passing on this performance. While I enjoy the album they were advertising, it never made any sense to me: why were they playing this album in particular live?
Surely now it makes sense to me: They wanted the show to be special. So, okay, I get it. Positive reception for the album, things are going well, and playing two sets a night should be a special thing. That being said, I need to raise a question: is that album a landmark? In recent years, bands have been, in an increasing number, performing full albums live. While it’s not anything new, last year I can, without thinking too hard, say I saw at least four albums performed live in their entirety. As such, the only album I felt was deserving of a full show was Dream Theater, in which they performed The Astonishing from start to finish. (Considering it’s a rock opera that spans two and a half hours)
Now, I’m not knocking the other bands I saw for their decision. Demanufacture is Fear Factory’s most iconic album and Intronaut’s The Direction of Last Things is a damn fine record, but I don’t recall these albums carrying magnitude with them on their release. (Mainly because I wasn’t born when Fear Factory came into popularity) It’s not like either band have a lacking discography, either, in particular Fear Factory, but what purpose does it have over nostalgia reasons and an easy bill to sell?
Okay, maybe Fear Factory isn’t the best band to bring up, as everyone gets subjected to Demanufacture at some point. But does a band like Sevendust need to perform their debut album in full? Is Kansas’ Leftoverture really that memorable beyond the singles? They may be good or even great albums, but are they the landmarks that changed the game or were different enough to stick out? Did Megadeth really need to play Countdown to Extinction in full? A lot of the times it doesn’t necessarily add up.
Between the Buried and Me are no strangers to full album performances. They’re scheduled to perform Colors in full, and have done it already in the past, but have also done it for Parallax II and Coma Ecliptic. In Parallax II‘s case, there was a lot of hype going into this album, so it felt warranted as the story was built up over the years through their entire discography. While I enjoyed Coma Ecliptic and it was hypnotizing seeing them literally plow through the entire thing back in September, the album never felt like it was that monumental for them beyond a musical shift in terms of success.
The Colors anniversary tour, however, is understandable. For them, that was the album that put their names in every progressive metalhead’s mouth and made them a force to be reckoned with. Similarly, Converge has done such with Jane Doe, which was a similar result for them, and influenced an entire style of music to take off. Albums like these make sense, and as such they probably do after all these years of praise and critical reception. When Metallica says they’re going to play Ride the Lightning live or Megadeth says they’re going to do another Rust in Peace tour, nobody questions it because these albums mean something and are more than just really damn good albums at the end of the day.
Going back to the beginning of this, Mastodon made sense when they played Crack the Skye in its entirety. It was a concept album (A huge plus for their case) and was among their most critically received albums. Had they made the case to play Leviathan in full, that would make as much sense as well. However if you were going to tell me they wanted to play The Hunter or Once More ‘Round the Sun in full, I’d question it. What’s the point, at the end of the day, if it’s not to celebrate a certain milestone in your career?
