by Todd Matthy

Last night All That Remains and Lacuna Coil graced an excited and fired up New York City crowd at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza. I arrived after the two opening acts in time for Lacuna Coil to take the stage.
Lacuna Coil was great. The crowd roared the second Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro took the stage. I was very impressed with the harmonizing of Cristina and Andrea. Every note and lyric they sang together was perfect and a second or pitch off. The star of the show, obviously, was Cristina. She really knows the role of a front woman. She had the crowd obeying her every command, moving from one end of the stage to another, all while head banging and striking commanding (and sexy) poses. While Cristina was into the performance Andreas sadly wasn’t. He spent most of the show standing there and singing. There was very little movement or energy on his part, making him stale. Sure head banged occasionally and his vocals top notch, he doesn’t seem to understand that a front man has to not only sing the songs but also engage the crowd. Whether he does this to balance the energy of Cristina is intentional is unknown. Still there are more interesting ways to balance energy on stage.

Next was All That Remains who took no prisoners. Upon taking the stage, the mosh pit began. An aggressive, fast paced, one worthy of NYC where people you had to be on guard from every direction. It impressed front man Phil Labonte, but it wasn’t good enough. Phil wanted a ”New York circle pit” and a circle pit he got, a very fast paced and open one. It was then that I pussed out and went upstairs where you could feel the vibrations from the bands playing. Kudos must be given to lighting crew. The lighting was perfectly in sync with the band, especially during their most aggressive parts. I loved the aggressive strobe light employed during the trudging and solos. A good, old-fashioned aggressive performance, couldn’t ask for more.