Red With Envy, Shortie & Absent Society

This evening started out as all evenings should - with a good, solid pummeling. Concord, California's metal zealots Absent Society occupied the stage in front of about three spectators, but the lack of an actual audience seemed only to enrage the band even more. With a crunchy and ridiculously heavy sound, Absent Society tried their best to undermine the structural integrity of the stage with crazed jumping and thrashing, including a bassist who could not get enough of jumping off the drum platform. Musically, they were Sevendust minus the mainstream trendiness, plus deliciously evil screaming abilities, with a touch of Tool for flavor. Visually, they were at least crazy enough to warrant a good metaphor. And metaphorically, they were an iron wrecking ball leveling a Johnny-On-The-Spot.
One vibe-smothering habit a lot of bands have is to stop and ask the crowd for encouragement, such as telling them to step forward, etc. I hate when bands do that, and unfortunately Absent Society seemed to be the regional expert at it. Their unnumbered requests for crowd participation came off as mostly irritating, but the band had no trouble making up for it with raw sonic force that made those three spectators happy to oblige.
It seems more people were in the room to see Sacramento, California's Shortie, because the crowd increased significantly in size, even adding head-banging and occasional rock-out gestures. Shortie's brand of metal was not quite as hard as the previous act's, but it was much more melodic, with discernible rhythm progressions and a lead guitarist who played real solos. Some songs had a powerful drive to them, with ferociously pumping guitars and a boom-snap-boom-snap rhythm section that I liked, with mob-shouted choruses that brought flashbacks to Chico, California's own Hit By a Semi. Others had a more mellow sound, hinting at Tool or Incubus. Their stage show I filed under "totally bad ass," with its ninja kicks, rock star posing and cool rock star hair.
Everyone knew what was up when the headliner hit the stage. If the first act was equivalent to hitting an outhouse with a wrecking ball, then Red With Envy was like hitting it with a ballistic missile. It started out with the band's spooky background noises, smoke and atmospheric effects, then exploded without warning, lighting up the stage with all kinds of tricks from the band's trademark light box. The sheer intensity of the opening number was insane, and the crowd packed up close to the stage, thrashing viciously and creating a stadium-like effect that made everyone forget it was Wednesday night. Lead singer Chavez Jarrett spent a lot of time screaming from atop said light box, while drummer Nick Harris punished his kit savagely. After a good stretch of energetic power-chord thrashers, the guitarist threw his wife-beater into the crowd (that girl it hit really didn't want it) and picked the opening notes for a mellow number with a resonant, meandering lead. The band went on to cover the ground between a Tool-like depression and a manic scream-fest until everyone's hearing was pretty much shot.
- Words and photo by Peter Kimmich

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