Allegaeon/Rings of Saturn Pittsburgh Show Review

Show Review the Dankmemes Tour: The Rex Pittsburgh Pa 3/16/18

Written by: George Archibald
Photos by: Brian Altman

Pittsburgh, Pa 3/16/18 The Rex Theater was the hosting venue for The Dankmemes Tour, headlined by Rings of Saturn, with supporting acts Nekrogoblikon, Allegaeon, Lorna Shore, Entheos, and Gloom. The Rex on Pittsburgh’s infamous South Side. The venue filled quickly this night an boasted a near capacity crowd, with everyone excited to see their favorite heavy hitters. Everywhere you looked you could see fans clad in Rings of Saturn shirts. There were even a few people wearing Pittsburgh’s own Sign of the Swarm merchandise this night.
The show kicked off with the band Gloom, a heavy death metal act that sound relatively close to the likes of Dying Fetus and Cannibal Corpse. They hit the crowd like a 40lb sledge- hammer, churning out down-tuned riffs that made anyone in the pit want to hit someone. The band played well on their writing dynamics, switching between a bit of grind with an old school death metal feel, to throwing in some flavors of beatdown to end their set.
Next on stage was Entheos, vocalist Chaney Crabb got the crowd into their set right off the bat showing her on stage enthusiasm running across the stage and headbanging along to the songs. Entheos is such a super tight band live. They have mastered the ability to make the songs sound exactly like they do on the albums. The bands set consisted of songs from their most recent release Dark Future, most notably the singles, “Pulse of A New Era’, and ‘The World Without Us.’
Following Entheos was New Jersey natives Lorna Shore with their signature brand of Deathcore. The band has been touring in support of their album Flesh Coffin for the last year. Lorna Shore has become one of the crowd favorites in Pittsburgh having tour stops in the city over the past couple years.. One of the standout moments of their set was when Signs of The Swarm’s vocalist CJ McCreery joined the band for guest vocals on the song ‘Grimoire.’
Allegaeon took the stage next, throwing down several technical death metal tunes. The band has been touring and playing hits from their last album ‘Proponent for Sentience.’ The crowd was getting into as the band played through ‘All Hail Science.’
Nekrogoblikon was up next, joining the band on stage was their infamous mascot John Goblikon. John hyped they crowd as the band played through many of their hits which included the newest single ‘Dressed as Goblins.’ The band has released a video for this song which will be on their upcoming album, Welcome to Bonkers which will be released April 13.
Closing out the night was the mighty Rings of Saturn. They got the crowd into a frenzy with several crowd surfers throughout their set consisted of songs from all the bands’ albums; Ultu Ulla, Lugal Ki En, Dingir, and Embryonic Anomaly. Drummer Aaron Stechauner played through a very technical drum solo mid-set , and was also the lead in getting the crowd to sing happy birthday to Lorna Shore’s guitarist Adam De Micco. The band closed out the evening by performing a flawless version of the song ‘Inadequate’.