Published Wednesday, July 6, 2011 By amanda_caines. Under Editor : Amanda Caines, Photographer: Rebecca Ruddy, Show Review, The Milestone Club, Writer: Amanda Caines Tags: Amanda Caines, Death Proof, heavy metal, Luna's Lament, Manamana, muppets, The Milestone
With mic stands decked in American flags and band members bearing patriotic colors, Manamana kicked off a great Fourth of July weekend at The Milestone. As is customary at the infamous Ghetto Fortress, there was a lot of music, drunken partying, and partial nakedness, all led by the aggressive rock of the three bands on the bill. For those into heavy metal & nakedness—you missed a great show if you weren’t already there.
Starting off the night was the oft-mentioned Death Proof from Greensboro. This is one of several times they’ve made their way onto a bill in Charlotte in the last couple of months, and they had as big a crowd at the bar as the two Charlotte-based bands with whom they shared the stage. While I won’t go into a great deal of detail since we’ve recently included them in a previous article, I will testify that they are every bit as powerful and rambunctious on stage as previously described, and their style, akin to that of Disturbed or Godsmack, had me wanting to mosh—and I don’t mosh.
Following Death Proof came the illustrious Luna’s Lament, with two lady rockers in the band, bringing the female rocker total for the night to three—Death Proof’s drummer is also a woman. Compared to the first time I saw Luna’s Lament last July, they all have come a long way. Guitarist “Kimniption” and drummer “Digi” always had a good stage presence and technical precision at the same time, but bassist “Moose” loosened up a lot since then and continues to be more active on stage. The most drastic change was that vocalist Morgan Riley is suddenly on fire on stage—the bright red hair just feeds the flames. She attributes her newfound stage energy to having watched Jaycee Clark from Greensboro band A Light Divided: “I saw [her] on stage and was like ‘Wow—I’ve really got to step it up.’”
Morgan and Kim started the evening’s trend of stripping down to bra/bikini tops in the sauna-like venue, and by the end of their set, the gaggle of girls in bikini tops both on and off stage certainly made it an interesting evening. Music-wise, Luna’s Lament has some engaging guitar parts and creative layouts, but Morgan, despite having a lovely upper range, sings well below her natural voice most of the time. It makes sense on the older material written for a man’s voice, but the new song they unveiled tonight was not noticeably different. I look forward to hearing what they can pull out when Morgan gets a little more comfortable breaking out of the low zones of former singer Ziggy’s material and writing vocal lines in her power range.
Even with some killer supporting bands, Manamana still rocked the headliner spot of the night with an upbeat set played to a great group of adoring—and half-naked—fans. After announcing that they hoped we all brought earplugs, the guys opened their set with a heavy cover of CCR’s “Fortunate Son,” but these guys are not your typical Southern rock cover band. Like Lynyrd Skynyd—and this is about the only characteristic the two bands share— three of the guys play guitar, offering a lot of awesome options for guitar harmonies and a sonic wall of distortion for the heavy parts, both of which they explored quite a bit. Not being well-versed in death metal vocals, I’m not sure you can call the three guitarists’ simultaneous-but-different screaming “harmony,” but paired with some fresh grooves and layered guitars, it’s an effective communication of the complexities of a dark and angry mood and perfect for this breed of metal.
It’s so refreshing to hear a metal band doing something different from the run-of-the-mill, three-chord guitar parts in 4/4 time signature, with a bunch of screaming that doesn’t change registers or quality. Manamana hits a variety of time signatures, multi-faceted riffage, and boasts a playful chorus of screamers who smile on stage more than any local metal band I’ve ever seen. They cut up with each other on stage and simply exuded the joy of metal during their set—and the fans ate it up. There were sequined-bra-wearing dancers, moshers, and head-bobbers all enjoying the different aspects as Manamana changed gears from death metal to bluesy rock and back again. Guitarist/vocalist Carmen Piro even joined in the strip show and took off his Captain America shirt, revealing an even more patriotic “Freedom” shirt to match the garden of little American flags all over the stage—and some of the guys in the crowed followed suit.
Seeing the aftermath of gleeful, drunken nakedness that followed Manamana’s set, I wanted to go high-five everyone in the band for putting on such a blatantly fun show. This is one heavy metal party band that can deliver a good time that inspires people to get drunk and take their tops off while maintaining enough substance to entertain even the most sober of designated drivers. Every metal head who likes to party should check out Manamana at least once, if not once weekly.
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