Starting the night off was Bleed the Dream, who’s set I only caught the end of so I didn’t get a real feel of what they sounded like. Next up was Fair To Midland, who was also on last years Family Values Tour. I remembered them having a decent sound so I figured it’d be cool to see them playing a longer set…

Their first song sounded awesome and they had a strong stage presents, but things slowed down in the beginning of the second song. As the band started playing vocalist Darroh Sudderth began swinging the mic around when it hit one of the sound monitors on stage and broke. The rest of the band had to keep playing and cover for the lack of vocals while stage hands ran back and forth trying to get a new mic hooked up…

A mic was finally taken off of the keyboardist stand and the set continued. But it seemed like the sudden stop of things broke Sudderth out of his rhythm. For the rest for the set his vocals seem off and on, for the most part he did well, but when he got to parts of songs where he would try to scream or yell it just wasn’t coming out right or maybe that’s just the way it supposed to sound and I just didn’t like it, who knows…

This now brings us to Dir En Grey, walking on stage to mass screams and cheers from their fans dressed up in anime style fashions. Dir En Grey come out with what I think it such an awesome entrance. The guys have this very Zen calm look on their faces, the best of all is Front-man Kyo who to begin with stands maybe at 5ft and has this blank look in his eyes and he takes his place on stage. But with the first riff of the guitar that all changes…

Kyo explodes in a fury of hard screams and violent slams as he gives every fan in the place what the want…pure chaos. Dir en Grey’s set was very impressive as they rolled through maybe 16 to 20 songs, there were only a few that seemed to be of the slower ballad type everything else was hard hitting ear shattering metal. And while I couldn’t tell you what songs were played because most if not all of Dir En Grey’s songs are in Japanese…

And while I have them on my play list, it is sometimes hard to get in to something that you don’t understand. But their live shows are not to be overlooked, the guys truly have an understanding of hard heavy metal as they shred their guitars, along to a rigid bass line and chest pounding drum beat. All this while Kyo keeps fans well entertained with his untamed force onstage…

Before headlining their own U.S. tour “The Inward Scream Tour”, Dir En Grey has been a very world traveled band, playing their early years in mostly Japan before beginning an Asian tour in 03-04. After success in Asian markets Dir En Grey hit the European music scene playing sold out shows in Paris and Berlin. All the while here in the U.S. the only way you would have heard of Dir En Grey was if you had heard their music on an anime movie or found one of their Import CDs…

It wasn’t till 2006 that Dir En Grey hit the U.S. playing shows in L.A. , New York and at Austin’s South by Southwest. That’s when U.S. fans got to see what the rest of the world already knew Dir En Grey kicks ass. Not long after that is when they were invited to play on the family values tour and showed fans they were without doubt a band to keep an eye on…

If Dir En Grey isn’t a band you know about or even heard of before. Then Give them a listen to and while I did say earlier their music is hard to get into since its in Japanese Their live shows are ones not to miss. I would hope that they will be on one of the many summer tours this year, and if so check them out. If you want to hear some of their music their second U.S. release “The Marrow of a Bone” is out now. Before I go I have one more thing to say to the guys of Dir En Grey “Doumo Arigato” for a great night…