Many fans dream of the day they might get the chance to see their favourite band play live. Such was the case when I visited Toronto to see Faith No More perform live at The Warehouse.
The evening started off better than expected when I got to speak to Roddy and Puffy before the show. But waiting for 3 hours for the doors to open tended to drag on after awhile. 8:00 came along and I headed for the stage.
The venue was huge for looking like such a small place on the outside. The crowd seemed very anxious to get the show underway so we waited up front and then the lights dimmed and the show began.
Steel Pole Bathtub was the opener. Now usually I can try and give a good look at just about anything, but truthfully, they sucked! There was no music in anything they played at all, so I just stood and waited til the end if their set.
FNM appeared on the stage full of expected energy and the crowd instantly went insane. Opening with "Ricochet" the audience began to jump around and started to crowd surf and they all knew this was gonna be a great evening.
Performances of "Digging the Grave", "What A Day", "King For A Day", "Evidence", "Introduce Yourself", and "Just A Man" were absolutely incredible. Songs like "Epic", "Midlife Crisis", "Edge Of The World", and "Easy" were also of the great highlights of this amazing concert.
With more energy than any act I'd ever seen, the band instantly controlled and thrilled their audience.
Mike Patton was surprisingly calm with thanking the audience frequently, but not really talking much. He thrashed and screamed and at one point, pissed on the crowd, but things seem to be more mellow. Some believe Mike is getting tired of FNM, but I believe as hard as some might want to think, perhaps he's just being a little more conservative about things now. Some might recall live tracks from the "Angel Dust" tour where he did a LOT of nothing but screaming and not singing, hence, this time around, his voice is incredibly similar to the recorded album. The band themselves, including Mike, have even said that they feel a lot more "together" now that a lot of major changes have happened to them since the AD tour.
The band seemed to get along a lot better with the new guitarist in this set and perhaps that is an even better reason the band sounded good.
With a good mixture of old and new tunes, Faith No More, easily made the audience love every minute of the performance. They returned for an encore, as expected, and ended the show with "The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies", which perhaps got the best response and power out of the entire audience.
This was indeed the most unforgettable show I have ever been to.
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