Some things just keep me coming back for more. Unlike most of the concert reviews I write, this time around we are going back for not a second, not a third, but a fourth time. Mastodon and Gojira are bands I have been listening to and seeing live for many years, dating all the way back to the times when these bands were new exciting things. Like most of the bands I cover, even they have now reached their years of going at least half a decade between new albums and resting on the strength of their now indisputable back catalogs brimming with new millennium masterpieces of heavy metal. But they still keep me coming back for more in the live setting, and for extremely good reason. Mastodon and Gojira are now entering a rarefied status of having had four concerts I’ve attended, something reserved for very few bands amongst the hundreds I’ve seen perform. I’ve only seen three other bands live four times; Slayer (three of which were with Dave Lombardo and Jeff Hannemann), Chimaira (Cleveland’s local “New Wave of American Heavy Metal” legends whose last concert I attended was their May reunion for the 20th anniversary of The Impossibility of Reason), and Every Time I Die (a band I’m not even a big fan of, they just toured with everyone and anyone, including the 2004 Ozzfest with Slayer I saw and opening for the last Mastodon show I saw in 2019). Boris will also be entering this exclusive club when I see them for a fourth time along with Melvins next month. After all these years of being the unlikely faces of progressive metal and entering the mainstream’s recognition with Grammy awards and number one best selling albums in the US, a Mastodon and Gojira co-headlining tour just seems like a win/win for everyone. Both bands made concept records about supernatural whales that went down as undeniable metal classics, both feature some of the most technically skilled musicianship out there today, with their drummers even being given late night television stints, and both command large followings with an ability to draw crowds worldwide. It was long overdue that Mastodon and Gojira combined forces, and what a sight to behold it is.
Two things to address about Mastodon live performances over the years are claims that they supposedly cannot replicate their studio sound as well in the live setting, and that they have little audience interaction until Brann’s closing monologue. While there are small hints of truth to these claims, they’re overblown. Last time I saw Mastodon, Brann invited his 90 year old grandmother from Buffalo, NY onstage for the crowd to sing happy birthday. Mastodon’s intricacies that give them the progressive metal label are of course difficult to perform, so playing entire albums of the stuff live is demanding. The vocals are the main focus of the complaints and hey, listen to the music they make. It’s hard to pull off. They’re worth seeing live over and over again, believe me. Fuck the haters.
Now as I had said, I have seen both of these bands three times each over an extremely long period of time. In chronological order, let’s start in an always enthusiastic moment to relive, a Slayer concert which featured Dave Lombardo on drums and Jeff Hannemann on guitar way back in 2006. The Unholy Alliance Tour featured an amazing lineup that suitably satiated a 15 year old metalhead like myself; Children of Bodom (RIP Alexi Laiho), Mastodon, Lamb of God and the OG lineup Slayer premiering new music from their then unreleased album Christ Illusion. This was so long ago that Mastodon was also premiering new music at this show from Blood Mountain, which would come out about a month after the concert. It took place at the same riverfront venue as today’s Mastodon and Gojira show. This may have been my single favorite concert from all of my teenage years, and for very good reason. A lineup like Children of Bodom, Mastodon and Lamb of God in their primes opening for a then relatively recently reunited Slayer, each premiering new music from upcoming albums live? Experiencing things like this at age 15 is why I dragged my ass back into the pit for Slayer’s retirement tour with Lamb of God’s final run with Chris Adler along in tow. It’s also why I’d even went to the next Mastodon show I’d see, the 2012 Hunter Heritage tour co-headlining with Opeth. The title of this tour explains the set and my relative disappointment; on this tour Opeth played the entire then-new Heritage album and two old songs (“Demon of the Fall” and “The Grand Conjuration” were great though), and Mastodon played the entire The Hunter album. The Hunter is my least favorite Mastodon album and this show did not change that opinion, nor has time or even new Mastodon albums thankfully. They did bring out some heavy hitting throwbacks here like “Hand of Stone”, “Blood and Thunder” and “Aqua Dementia”, and the stuff from The Hunter I did like was very cool live. Ghost opened that show before they’d go on to be the next big thing, for better or for worse. It was an interesting microcosm of a lineup representing bands unafraid to venture toward a more mainstream approach (Mastodon), bands retreating into a drastic sound change they’d carry on until this day (Opeth), and the up and coming next generation before they’d make it (Ghost). Many years and missed Mastodon shows went by, serious shout out to them for playing lots of shows in and around Cleveland when many skip us, but when their 2019 tour commemorating the 10th anniversary of Crack The Skye with a full performance of that album was announced, I couldn’t say no. Opening this tour was Every Time I Die, a band I could not escape from until they disbanded for good, so I saw them a fourth time. Interestingly enough, this tour was also a co-headliner with Coheed and Cambria performing after Mastodon. Coheed was another band that was very big in the weird, unlikely prog rock revival scene of the early 2000’s, and I don’t hate them. However, the reason I went was Mastodon and witnessing a performance of the entire Crack the Skye album live was a sight and sound to behold indeed. They did do a few older songs at the end, “Crystal Skull” which I linked a video from below and “I Am Ahab”, along with “Ember City”, a truly random album cut from 2014’s Once More Round the Sun.
Now while I got into Mastodon and Gojira at around the same time, when they released concept albums about mythological whales that sounded like nothing else in their day, it took a while for me to see them live. They did play the NBA stadium here when I was in high school… opening for Metallica. I sadly didn’t go. But by the time Gojira was releasing their consistently excellent fifth album L’Enfant Sauvage, I was finally able to witness these environmentally conscious Frenchmen do their world leveling live show when their 2012 tour came through town. Gojira was the last show I saw live at the legendary Cleveland concert club Peabody’s, if you know you fucking know. I still miss that hot, tiny, smelly dump of a club, I even miss the beam in the middle of the stage that obstructed everyone’s view and even fucked with the bands themselves. Two years later, Gojira was still touring L’Enfant Sauvage and their popularity continued to do nothing but escalate, therefore this time they were playing The Agora instead. Both of these shows were just mindblowing in their intensity, Gojira pay an incredible amount of attention to replicating their songs live and you can’t walk away anything but a more fervent fan than before. They’re one of the only bands where an extended intricate drum solo is not only welcomed, but the crowd would actually be angry if they didn’t do one. The last time I saw Gojira live was in 2017 on the Magma tour at the House of Blues with Code Orange and Torche opening. This was the peak of Code Orange’s Forever hype and they were great, Torche were Torche again (I saw them with Converge in 2012 and find them pretty mid), and Gojira were now a bonafide worldwide headliner who then had a nomination for “Best Rock Album” in the Grammy awards. Their live show had now evolved to feature things like blast cannons of smoke and confetti, elaborate light designs and even an encore that consisted of Metallica and Sepultura covers that almost certainly sounded better than any actual modern Metallica or Sepultura live performances. I was at every Gojira concert in Cleveland in the entire decade of the 2010’s, and that is for a good fucking reason. Even if I thought Magma was a massive step down from their prior works, they still brought their A game live and deserve every bit of hype and status they’ve attained. Unfortunately, I missed Gojira’s late 2021 performance in Cleveland back at The Agora again (this time newly renovated), but only a short while later, here they are again.
The opening band on The Mega Monsters Tour is Lorna Shore, a band that was once just another faceless 2010’s deathcore band. However, since acquiring new vocalist Will Ramos in 2021, this band has picked up a lot of traction and acclaim in a short period of time. But it’s still not really my thing at the end of the day, I don’t hate it but I wouldn’t actively choose to go see them or look up their music either. Their set was all from their newest album Pain Remains, which has seen the band incorporate more progressive and symphonic elements from death metal and black metal. They’re not the first band to do this and won’t be the last either, it’s a sound changing drift deathcore bands like Job for a Cowboy and Winds of Plague did 10 years ago. The majority of their set was the three part suite “Pain Remains” parts 1, 2 and 3, I can respect that they would choose their more adventurous material for their breakout opening performance at such a large venue. I assume when Lorna Shore comes through on their own headlining tours, they’re playing to hardcore pit kids at The Foundry or No Class, not the stoners and neckbeards who come out for Gojira and Mastodon. Didn’t hate them, they weren’t terrible, but they were not my thing either. What I did hate was paying $86 for two T shirts, but life in general in 2023 consists of blowing money fast. To make up for it, I played the tried and true game of bleacher shuffle at Jacob’s Pavilion to sit in a spot better than what I’d actually paid for. I think the whole row I was in was bought by scalpers who never sold, because other than my buddy and myself, there were about 4 other people in this front and center row versus every other one around us being packed. Sometimes things just work out brilliantly that way.
I have to say, I was surprised to see Mastodon was performing in the first slot. I know they’re rotating throughout the entire tour, but I was kind of expecting Mastodon to close out the night going into this. As I’d said, the last two times I saw Mastodon, they’d been doing album specific tours featuring a handful of other songs thrown in or at the end, so I was really excited to hear a Mastodon set that covered their entire catalog for the first time in 17 years. They immediately blew things up from the word go with “The Wolf is Loose” and “Crystal Skull” from Blood Mountain, I’ve actually never seen Mastodon not play “Crystal Skull” but this was the first time I ever saw them do “The Wolf is Loose”. Very strong opening, immediately going into “Megalodon” next, which was a song I’d not heard Mastodon perform live in 17 years. Seeing them do this older material that I’d not heard from them at a concert since I was 15 years old just fills me with both nostalgia and appreciation of the current moment I’m here to witness. I can’t be any happier to hear these throwbacks, it was great. “Divinations” was the only song off Crack The Skye they did at this show, which I’m sure was a bummer for some, but I was perfectly okay with that given the 2019 performance of the entire Crack The Skye album I’d seen. Another awesome performance. After this, we were treated to a helping of Emperor of Sand material, an album I’d never seen anything from live. “Andromeda” from that album certainly worked in a live setting despite not being the most memorable thing of Mastodon’s, and it provided an excuse for the band to show off their flashy new pyro. I don’t think I ever saw Mastodon use pyro until now, their visual screens are now approaching Tool levels of trippy, mind altering artwork too, they have really brought their stage set to a whole new level in 2023. “Sultan’s Curse” and “Fallen Torches” were cool too, again these aren’t really my favorite Mastodon songs but they sound good live and are still better than a lot of those album cuts from The Hunter I saw them do. For being the fourth time I’ve seen them, there have been quite a few songs I’ve never seen them do in this set thus far.
Up next was some material from their newest album, 2021’s Hushed and Grim. “Pushing the Tides” was the first single from the album featuring some of the heaviest, most sludgy stuff they did in years. It was a great performance of one of Mastodon’s late career triumphs. “More Than I Could Chew” however is a song very emblematic of my issue with Hushed and Grim in general; it’s too plodding, too mid-tempo and doesn’t justify it’s length. If one song took me out of the moment here it was this one, but I’m not going to complain about a single other aspect, it at least had a cool visual element and I swear I even saw the Crash Bandicoot crystal in one of it’s many drugged out displays. Things immediately rebounded with a performance of one of Mastodon’s all timers in “Aqua Dementia” though, this is a song I’ve seen them do three out of the four times and it never gets old. I don’t think “Aqua Dementia” has ever hit as appropriately as it does on the riverfront though, especially considering this is the infamous burning Cuyahoga River itself. Up next was the Alice in Chains-esque “Steambreather” single from Emperor of Sand, this is another new one to me live (though I watched them perform it on the Adult Swim channel live before). It was fine, the trippy light and visual show worked well with this droning stoner grunge styled track too. “Iron Tusk” is yet another one that takes me back, way back, I think they opened with this the first time I ever saw them. The inclusiveness of the early material in this setlist is my favorite thing about it and these songs still sound great live 20 years later.
“March of the Fire Ants” takes me all the way back. This was the first Mastodon song I ever heard, I was 13 and it was one of the heaviest things I’d ever heard back then. The last time I saw them play this was in 2006 and they did not have the impressive fire storm accompanying above back then. The nostalgia of hearing these songs live again after all these years is a very gratifying feeling, thanks Mastodon. “Mother Puncher”, goddamn we are going back to the fucking start and staying there I suppose. Here’s another one I haven’t seen live since I was 15. “Circle of Cysquatch”, and another one. This was a stacked setlist for inclusions from their first decade or so as a band. It’s fun to see how they went from an up and coming phenom opening for Slayer to this, especially at the same venue. But wait, there’s more… much more. “Crusher Destroyer”, yet another song I hadn’t seen Mastodon play since that 2006 show. I don’t believe this is intentional at all because Mastodon’s set has largely not changed throughout this tour, but this set nearly contained every song I saw in 2006 at this same riverfront pavilion. The only other thing I remember from that was “Where Strides the Behemoth”, which was not included, but I am more than willing to hear the other 7 or 8 songs live again. Mastodon capped off their show with the traditional closing number, “Blood and Thunder”, which I actually did not see on the Crack the Skye anniversary tour. This is basically Mastodon’s permanent set ender unless they’re playing a specific album, and even then it might just be the 2nd to last instead. Always a ripper whether back in the day or in 2023. Brann of course hopped down to give his closing argument at the end, always the spokesman to countering the “no crowd interaction” claim. He talked about playing a concert in Cleveland nearly every year since 1999 and how we must be tired of Spinal Tap jokes. Great guy, great drummer, great set.
During the set break, a sudden downpour of rain began. Unlike the entrance to The Cure at Blossom, this didn’t encourage an exodus, I’ve unfortunately met several people who left that show before it ever started due to being confused by what staff was saying, read my review from June for a better understanding. 10 PM rolled around and Gojira was set to close out the night for this stop on the tour. As it turns out, that would be a wise choice based on audience response. Gojira’s music just carries the heavier, more mosh oriented gene that whips a crowd into a frenzy.
Gojira opened up with “Ocean Planet”. This was the one set change the band made from prior tour dates, previously opening with Fortitude’s single “Born for One Thing”. Of the two, “Ocean Planet” is the clear winner and easily sets the stage for a very intense set. One that hasn’t worn off any welcome in the now four times I’ve seen Gojira. Now this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen Gojira open with “Ocean Planet”, but again, this is where the throwback nostalgia factor of seeing these bands so many times kicks back in. This is the obvious way to start the set, the first song on the best album, kick everyone’s ass from the start and just don’t stop. Following was “Backbone”, same as the From Mars to Sirius album, same as they’ve done in their live set before, just as effective as it’s ever been just on a grander scale than ever before. These songs are still going as hard as they possibly can in a riverfront arena, and seeing Gojira in the final slot is a nice touch given the increasing energy from the crowd compared to Mastodon’s hazy stoner vibe. It was a proper pacing decision. I unfortunately have to concede in 2023 that the next song Gojira played, “Stranded”, is the people pleaser for the crowd. People really got into this one. I tend to view this as the jumping off point for the band where they also made the step forward into the mainstream via making their signature low note monotone chug part into an entire song, but it was also their only thing you could even call a “hit”. It didn’t chart and “Flying Whales” is more of a meme song, but this is the one people were singing along with and beating the crap out of each other in the pit to. Of fucking course it was. But speaking of “Flying Whales”, that was next. Every time I’ve seen Gojira, they’ve played “Flying Whales”, they’re known more for this concept than the actual music at this point I think. Gojira not only showed off their also new (to me at least) pyro and firepower by blowing off massive flame columns but inflatable whales for the crowd to throw around. Hopefully they were biodegradable, because they probably ended up in the Cuyahoga River again waiting to be burned, completely defeating Gojira’s logic. I’m joking, because I’ve seen Gojira play this song every time I’ve ever seen them live, it’s a legacy tune that deserves it. “The Cell”, one of my favorites from Magma was next, and of course it was another people pleaser because Gojira really seems to attract people who jumped on at Magma these days? Were the Grammy nominations, actual charting single and meme power enough? I do actually like “The Cell” but it’s kinda perplexing that it seems like more people knew this than “Backbone” or “Ocean Planet” anymore. I’m old and it’s the fourth Gojira concert I’ve been too still.
The only song from the fantastic The Way Of All Flesh album to appear in this setlist was the arguable centerpiece of the album, “The Art of Dying”. This song really captures Gojira in their prime in one song, it’s extremely long but covers all their intricacies and enticing moments, this is the first time I’ve seen it performed and it was awesome. If there’s a new song to catch four shows into seeing Gojira, this is a hell of a first timer. Maybe this was my mythical white whale of Gojira setlists and I finally harpooned that ass randomly without even trying. After this came the obligatory drum solo that nobody had better been complaining about. Mario Duplantier, and for that matter Brann Dailor from Mastodon, have rightfully earned reputations at the top of the contest of best metal drummers of all time for good reason. You can’t fuck with it, it’s impossible. Things coagulated back together into a performance of the song “Grind” from Gojira’s newest album Fortitude. “Grind” is by far one of my favorites from the album by the virtue of being a throwback song to their hard and heavy days, but after this they’d continue to play more from their latest. The crowd was into it and I can’t deny the impact the next song “Another World” had, people were getting seriously down. This is another one of the songs I’d typically disregard, but I’ve never seen this one live yet either and a lot of people were into it to the degree where you have to just admit it. Gojira and Mastodon changed a lot, maybe Gojira doesn’t have a “Show Yourself” or “Curl of the Burl”, but something like this gets a lot of casuals moving more than “The Art of Dying” did.
Gojira still had standbys up their sleeves though. “Silvera” is still a technical metal lesson, cramming a lot into it’s 4 minute runtime. It was by far the better standout from Magma compared with “Stranded” and sounds better than ever on the Mega Monsters tour. This one definitely earns it’s keep in the setlist, it’s a solid and compact demonstration of Gojira’s prowess. “Amazonia” came next, to ensure that Roots era Sepultura was paid tribute to in terms of the sounds being made. This song is basically the Fortitude equivalent to Magma’s “Silvera”, another hard slammer guaranteed to stay in the setlist due to it’s crowd command and summation of prior peaks. But these days, Gojira and Mastodon are bands of the people and if their new albums aren’t From Mars to Sirius 2 or Crack the Skye 2, nobody should really give a shit anymore. These bands are still here, doing their thing, and performing sets that shouldn’t have a single complaint left after all is said and done. Gojira closed with a crowd involved “The Chant” fusing into the all timer from L’enfant sauvage, “The Gift of Guilt”. Now while I really enjoyed the whole crowd participation and sampling the actual crowd into the sample for “The Chant”, it was really “The Gift of Guilt” that closed things out on a very strong note. I’ve never once seen Gojira perform “The Gift of Guilt”, despite this being my fourth time seeing them. What a way to go out on this one, a final surprise. Seeing these bands a combined eight times over seventeen years should speak for itself, I’ve hoped nothing but the success these bands eventually attained and then some. In 2023, they are holding their own and delivering, you only miss out by not seeing this live. Gojira and Mastodon revolutionized metal in the new millennium and have never let go of the mission they set out to accomplish.
VS. MusicK 