Text and photos by Hillarie Jason
It was a beautiful Sunday evening driving in to Boston to catch Baroness and Royal Thunder at The Royale (Seeing Royal Thunder at a place called The Royale did give the 2 year old in me a bit of a giggle). Then it’s time to park. Parking? Hah! Yeah well it’s Boston, what did I expect. Even on a Sunday you better believe you’re paying for it one way or another. Anyway, after depositing the steel chariot safely and in a surprisingly timely fashion into a $25 lot, I made my way to the venue. I had never been there even in it’s previous incarnation, The Roxy, for whatever reason, but I found it impressive, comfortable and set up well for the nights festivities. The upper balcony area was not open but the main floor was already filling up with people 15 minutes after the doors opened. I walked by the merch area and already there was a line of people excitedly getting their schwag on. With some time to kill before Royal Thunder went on, I spent some time yapping with a friend of mine, unpacking my camera gear and just getting an overall feel for the crowd and the place. The crowd was as expected. I’d say most were male between the ages of 18 and 28, with short hair. Not a super rowdy crowd. Just lots of happy, smiling people.
A few minutes to go time I made my way to the stage to find a good vantage point to start out with. I have seen Royal Thunder a number of times so I had a pretty good idea what side of the stage MLny Parsonz, singer and bassist, would be on and figured I’d start there then move my way over towards where Evan Diprima and Josh Weaver would be (drummer and guitarist, respectively). While I was getting my camera settings straight, I overheard a number of conversations around me both from people who hadn’t seen Royal Thunder and those raving about them. “You are in for a treat! If Janis Joplin was alive, she’d be the singer in this band. That’s what she sounds like,” said one fan. Another kid said this was the second show he had ever been to in his life. Not a bad second show to start with in my opinion.
Royal Thunder started out with a number of mellow songs I wasn’t familiar with but it was a good introduction to help ease the crowd into it. Slowly they moved through the set building momentum until the crowd was quietly in awe of the power of this band in a live setting and of course the soulful bellow of MLny Parsonz voice had their rapt attention at go. I saw a number of people mouthing the word “wow” all through the set. This three piece from Georgia definitely won over the crowd and garnered a number of new fans. Their never ending touring schedule over the past year or two hasn’t seemed to wear them out at all. They still give it their all and continue to blaze a trail for themselves wherever they go.
After a relatively quick 20 minute or so turn around, the stage was set for Baroness. The last time I saw this band was at The Palladium in Worcester, MA a little over a year ago with Meshuggah and Decapitated. It was just a few months before a they were in a horrible bus accident near Bath, England that occurred almost exactly one year ago. Needless to say I was curious to see what difference that had made to the band, other than the line up change. I mean a brush with death just has to mess with your head in some way. All I can say is that they are back and better than ever. This band live is now impeccable! Now, I’m not a huge fan of the Yellow and Green album as it just never spoke to me. It’s definitely solid but for whatever reason it didn’t tug at me the way some of the older stuff did. That being said, this time around they made me want to re-visit this album. The energy these guys are now rolling with on stage is incredibly infectious and highly inspiring. From the first note, Pete Adams was all over the stage whipping himself into a frenzy and John Baizley belted out the songs with enormous vigor. The new additions to the band, Sebastian Thompson on drums and Nick Jost on bass/keys, really seemed to work well. Maybe a perfect fit. I don’t know, but whatever it is, I can’t imagine them better. Totally blown away and far surpassed my expectations. They played pretty much all of the Yellow and Green album it seemed, then with an exclamation from John Baizley, “The sweethearts portion of the show is over,” they blazed into the encore with some older tunes and finished the night with the song Isak from the Red Album.
If and when this tour rolls through your neck of the the woods, I recommend going. Both bands make it worth your while.
Full photo set up on www.hillariejason.com
BARONESS
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