Last Friday I went to the Misery Signals show at the Starlite Room here in Edmonton. This Misery Signals show, my thirteenth time seeing them, was in celebration of the tenth anniversary tour (dubbed Malice X) of their debut album "Of Malice and the Magnum Heart" with all the original members Jesse Zaraska (vocals), Kyle Johnson (bass), Ryan Morgan (guitar), Stu Ross (guitar) and Branden Morgan (drums).
As I got to the venue and waited in the line up to get in. You could feel the energy and excitement for this show. With Jesse and Stu being from the area there were a lot of friends out for the show, and not only that, this American-Canadian hardcore band had a huge following here in Edmonton. On this hot and muggy evening as you got closer to the entrance of the Starlite Room, and anyone who knows the venue, it's a long line up between two building to get in, you could feel the heat and see the steam already coming out of the venue. I was sweating before I even got in. Once in the venue, it was like a sauna, as the place was packed and getting more crowded by the minute. I missed the first band but did catch the second band.
The second band was a band called This Is War from Edmonton. These guys were alright, they were a straight up metal band with two vocalists trading off on vocals throughout there songs.
This Is War.
Next up was band out of Los Angeles called All Hail The Yeti. This band featured drummer Ryan "Junior" Kittlitz whom hails from Edmonton and has played in many bands one of them being Compromise which is the band that was lead by Jesse Zaraska. All Hail The Yeti reminded me of Pantera in their "Great Southern Trendkill" era. So a southern metal feel. They too were alright, but not knowing their songs at all, a lot of it comes across as screaming. I think I may be getting too old for this metalcore stuff. I also found Ryan's drum sound was lost in the mix. You could see he was a flailing away on the drums, but the sound just didn't seem right. All and all, not a bad band.
All Hail The Yeti.
Now it was time for the band everyone was waiting for, the reunion of Misery Signals with all original members. By this time the Starlite Room was filled to capacity and feeling like a fucking sauna. Misery Signals did their debut album "Of Malice and the Magnum Heart" in its entirety. The band sounded tight, especially with this only being their third show of the nine show tour. Jesse Zaraska sounded good on vocals considering it had been sometime since he has done a full show with the band. What did bother me a bit, was that Jesse handed the vocals over to the crowd quite often through out the show. While it was cool that the crowd in front of the stage knew all the words to all the songs, I would have preferred to actually hear Jesse do the singing. Their hour long set was intense but affectionate with Jesse thanking everyone for coming out to the show several times, and the crowd singing Happy Birthday to Jesse at one point with Jesse's birthday being the following day. It's not everyday you go to a hard core show and hear the crowd breakout into the Birthday song. Another really touching part of the show was when Misery Signals did the song "The Day Summer Ended In June" which is the song dedicated to the two members (Jordan Wodehouse and Daniel Langlois) of Jesses's old band Compromise that were lost in a vehicle accident years ago while on tour in Alabama. You could see more then a few people with tears in there eyes during this sing-along, very touching. The band closed out the set with a 7 Angels 7 Plagues song "Silent Deaths, Crowded Lives". For those that might not know 7a7p is how Misery Signals came to be, as Jesse did vocals for the band for a few gigs after the original singer quit. This was after the demise of Compromise of course too. After those 7a7p gigs, the members of that band asked Jesse if he wanted to start a new project which came to be Misery Signals.
Anyways, this was an amazing show, and it was good to run in to some old friends at the show and to talk briefly with Jesse after the show, and thanks for the hug Jesse, your a stand up guy, it's awesome knowing you and being able to call you a friend. Good times!!!
The pictures I took at this show sucked, as the lighting at the venue isn't the best and with the venue being packed it was hard to get a decent photo, and I had a good buzz on.
Misery Signals.
Jesse Zaraska has just put out a book which is well worth looking in to.
My autographed copy of the book.
Some fan footage from the Edmonton show.
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