All Photos & Text by Matthew Grant Anson
The Power of the Riff, if nothing else, is an experience. It’s almost 12 hours of constant aural pummeling, the only reprieve coming in trips to the bar or time spent splayed out in the booths lining the Echo and Echoplex.
With over 20 bands playing (including the ones that played in a pre-party the prior evening), it can be a struggle differentiating the genres as your ear drums begin to cave in and your bar tab increases. Because of this, it’s hard to give a fair, objective review of each and every band because the experience of POTR is just so extreme. Freshness is a thing when confronting so many hours of music, and the feeling of excitement and apprehension before Opposition Rising was far different from the feeling of exhaustion, delirium, and the impossibly early start of a hangover that came with The Obsessed.
Bapitists
Still though, it would be a crime not to point out the highlights. While legacy acts like Final Conflict and From Ashes Rise were cool to see and certainly put on good shows, POTR’s strengths come in putting together a lineup that is modern and relevant. The grindy hardcore of Dead in the Dirt was crushing, the sheer heaviness of Mammoth Grinder floor shaking, and the fury and frustration of Replica authentic.
Even the pre-party was a lineup that deserves a hat-tip; Black Breath absolutely brought it, but their predecessors in Early Graves and Obliterations in particular were almost shockingly extreme. You had people intentionally/drunkenly pushing the monitors around all over the stage mid-song, one guy collapsing after getting pushed onto the stage only to get hit with a well-aimed beer, and more examples of total debauchery that you just won’t get outside this collection of unique but interwoven genres.
Replica
The Power of the Riff is a live encyclopedia of bands new and old, and it truly caters to the forward thinking music listener that doesn’t intentionally alienate themselves from certain subgenres. It’s a festival for the open minded, by the open minded. If you’re just as capable of enjoying harsh noise/powerviolence as you are of enjoying doom metal, there’s truly no better place to be. Subgenres exist for a reason and are important on their own merits, but only so far as they help identifying particular sounds. Power of the Riff treats subgrenres of extreme music as doorways to different sounds instead of brick walls segregating sounds out of some cockamamie desire to maintain purity. This is something to celebrate; POTR does it right.
Bapitists
Black Breath
Bastard Noise
Children of God
Dead IN The Dirt
Centuries
Completed Exposition
Early Graves
Final Conflict
From Ashes Rise
Mammoth Grinder
MDC
Nomads
Obliterations
Old Wounds
Whip Hand
Repilca
Territory
Wartorn
The Obsessed
lame
August 19, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Been to POTR the last three years and this was the weakest one honestly. It shouldn’t have been considering The Obsessed, MDC, Bastard Noise, and Mammoth Grinder were there though. But seriously, a 40$ ticket?! what the fuck is this? the result of that showed in the attendance, by far the lowest of the last three years. No pits, huge lack of audience and audience energy. If it wasn’t for the stellar sets from the Obsessed and BN, i would have been extremely disappointed in this year’s show.