Written by Abel Carmona
Jan 18, 2007 at 07:00 PM
ImageCall it déjà vu if you will but the Sno-Core tour is where I got my start at HMR last year so it seemed fitting that it be my first show of this year. We had one great year last year bringing you close to 100 shows and hopefully this year will be no different. So starting off this year winter fresh brought us Army of Anyone, Hurt, Dropping Daylight and local boys Prognosis on their Sno-core tour this year.

HURT

I walked in to the main room at the Meridian just as California’s Hurt was taking the stage. I had heard one or two singles from Hurt before and from what I remembered I liked what I had heard. But after seeing them live tonight I now know I definitely liked what I heard, as front man J. Loren and Hurt gave fans a flawless performance.

Coming on stage in what has become his trademark black jacket and hat J. Loren began Hurts set with “Unkind” and almost went through the entire Vol. 1 album playing  “Rapture”, “Falls Apart”, and “House Carpenter”. Loren gave many guitar solos along with guitarist Paul Spatola, where Loren really impressed fans was during the song “Danse Russe” he played violin and did a killer solo with it as well.

Hurts music has such an influx of influences coming from J. Loren and Drummer Evan Johns. Two people who’s backgrounds couldn’t have been any more different with Loren coming from rural Virginia where he was raised on religion and classical music in a home where rock music was forbidden and he didn’t get his first taste of rock until in his teens when he heard the Pearl Jam song “Jeremy” at a friends house.

Where as Evan Johns grew up in Hollywood with a family who’s name is well know in the music world as some of the biggest producers in rock. Growing up with a steady diet of some of rocks biggest acts right in his own home. While in the studio as a kid, Johns says he always liked the way the drums looked and began playing them at age 5.

With the two of these different musical backgrounds come songs that have so many features to them. Many may start off on a melodic tone but rarely do they stay that way as they burst into hard guitar driven riffs. That blend very well with J. Loren’s vocals as he starts off with a whisper that builds into almost death metal screams.

Hurts live show translates very well on stage sounding unbelievable. This is one band I will undeniably be looking forward to seeing again. If you’re a fan of Hurt but don’t have their album or were maybe like me and had only heard a song or two, then go out a find their album Vol. 1, It has quickly found a place on my daily play list.  There is also word of some new music coming from Hurt sometime this year so be on the look out…

ARMY OF ANYONE

So what do you do when your bands on a hiatus, you just pick up the phone and give your rockstar friends a call and say hey lets start a super group. Or maybe that’s just how we would imagine it going. But here’s how it really went down, As Richard Patrick was working on material for the next Filter album, he asked friends Robert and Dean DeLeo if they could help out with a few tracks and what came out of that was the song “A Better Place”. Soon after the idea for Army Of Anyone was born.

Truth of the matter is when I first heard about Army Of Anyone, I was somewhat skeptical. Filters Richard Patrick just didn’t seem to be a good fit for the style of the DeLeo Brothers. But when I heard the first single “Goodbye” I thought it was ok, so when they rolled into town I decided to go check them out.

Army Of Anyone came on stage to mass applause, as the DeLeo’s set up their guitars. Richard Patrick came on stage in Bono like fashion black leather and big sunglasses. Starting their set off with the song “Father Figure” and covered a good number of tracks from their self-titled album. Which included “Goodbye”, “This Wasn’t Supposed To Happen” and “A Better Place”.

I had heard that they were going to also cover songs form both Stone Temple Pilots and Filter. I thought well that would be cool to see, being that I never got to see STP or Filter live, But it was only about half as good as I had hoped for. Patrick did great on the Filter songs, and he very well should have seeing that is his own band. But during the STP songs his vocal style just didn’t seem fit the songs or give them the sound that so may fans have come to know.

Other than that Army Of Anyone puts on a really good show and after listening to their album a few times I have found myself liking a few songs off it. And while I can’t say they completely won me over tonight, I will say that they have done something really well with the pieces they were left with and have found a way to bring it all together…