Suds on Bleeker

Killswitch Engage, those dyed-in-the-wool metalcore practitioners, began their first U.S. headlining trek behind their latest album on Thursday night in their hometown of Boston at the House of Blues.

And as any frequent concert-goer can tell you, the combination of starting off a tour and playing in one’s hometown generally combine to bring out the best in a band (if not some technical difficulties along the way).

KSE are a band particularly known for their live show due in large part to singer Howard Jones and guitarist/general goofball Adam Dutkiewicz.  They understand that they are there to entertain and they usually seem genuinely stoked to be on stage performing.  Of course, if you aren’t prepared to see a tall, gangly guitarist wearing a cape and headband running back and forth across the stage while jump-kicking and simultaneously shredding all while playing songs of a decidedly more serious nature, it can be a bit disconcerting.  That’s just how KSE rolls; as far as live performances go, fun comes before all else.  I know some people who strongly dislike that choice, but I don’t have a problem with it.  After all, there’s always the album itself to go back to if you don’t like the band’s stage antics.

Anyways, the show started off with a bang as the band hurried on stage and dove immediately into one of their hits, “Rose of Sharyn”.  Throughout the rest of the set they liberally incorporated cuts off their latest record, playing almost half of the songs from that disc.  The new material is not drastically different from their back catalog so it fit in seamlessly.

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