The various sound men struggled valiantly to produce decent quality audio -- but ultimately achieved mixed success, so to speak.
Opening act Taking Dawn was a formulaic metal band. The by-the-numbers songwriting was offset by good showmanship and a talented bassist. They were likable if not noteworthy. It was, sadly, impossible to hear the guitar work due to a muddy mix.
Maylene and the Sons of Disaster feature some nice guitar work by their clean shaven axeman who plays a Strat - solid playing, no posturing. The rest of the bad resembled the Monty Python crew in Life of Brian, esp. the stoning scene where Python members pretend to be women pretending to be men by wearing bad fake beards. The lead singer was pompous, pretentious and ultimately committed the mortal sin: he was tedious and the show seemed uninspired. Ho Hum. The sound was better for this band but still murky.
And then Lacuna Coil took the stage. Cristina Scabbia was very impressive and LC had the best sound of the evening although again, Cristina's powerful vocals were partially lost due to bad acoustics. That said, Lacuna Coil should not be missed. They focused on the new CD, Shallow Life, but the high point of the performance was a spirited rendition of Heaven's A Lie.
ATR headlined and Phil Labonte was the exact opposite of the frontman my son called The Big Lebowski -- the singer for Maylene and the Disasters. Labonte was sincere, enthused and unpretentious -- and his vocal training has really paid off. All That Remains was very, very good and the only negative was the bad sound. At one point, Labonte's death grunting sounded like Donald Duck due to the Starland's acoustics or lack thereof.
The bottom line: see Lacuna Coil, ASAP. ATR needs no recommendation. They are simply the finest metalcore band the U.S. has produced. Hats off to Phil Labonte. If ATR ever plays the Nokia Theatre -- it would be metal nirvana.
One other note: the "preferred" parking at the Starland is sheer hucksterism. There is no point to it as the main parking lot is so close to the venue that paying triple to park seems really silly. Equally silly - the parking lot attendants attempting to act as traffic cops. These individuals were completely inept and actually made the act of parking an exercise in somewhat risky, bureaucratic stupidity. The venue charges $6 to park even though it is in the middle of nowhere and by all rights parking should be free. Apparently the $6 pays the salary of the parking attendants. No comment.