Some underground bands don't know how to put on a show. Too often their music has little or no originality, or their onstage behavior and antics try to imitate the big name acts they'll never be.
They seem to get an adrenaline rush simply from standing on a stage, regardless of whether they are playing or not - and the audience can tell.
Rest Among Ruins is not one of those bands. The Baltimore-based group played at Sonar on Saturday evening as part of Project Independent, a showcase for independent metal artists. Project Independent travels internationally with the goal of discovering new bands in and around each city in which it stops. At the end of the tour, concert-goers can log onto www.ProjectIndependent.net and vote for their favorite band. The winner will receive a 60-day national headlining tour and a slew of new gear. Voting begins Dec. 1.
Despite the high stakes, Rest Among Ruins didn't let their nerves get the best of them, even if things didn't go exactly as planned. Frontman Mike Semesky stayed on pitch and smiled throughout the set, despite some technical glitches with his microphone.
Meanwhile, lead guitarist and Hopkins student Henry Kaldre had his own glitch to deal with.
"I smashed this guy in the weight room last night," Kaldre said shortly before going onstage, indicating his left index finger which was submerged in a cup of ice water. "So if I sound bad, that's why."
The band opened with "Lackluster," a favorite off their 2008 release, The Depths, and Kaldre sounded anything but bad. Even with his injury, it was not impossible to believe that he might be able to give someone like Kirk Hammett a good run for the money.
And though Rest Among Ruins is definitely a metal band, they threw in elements of originality that set them apart from their peers. Several of their songs contained clean harmonizing vocalizations that screamed classic rock, but they worked. They worked incredibly well, in fact, almost like they were born to accompany the double bass pedal. The band also had no qualms about doing their own thing on stage. At one point during the opening song, Kaldre (in skin-tight jeans) and bassist Jason Goldman-Petri lifted their axes up and simultaneously hopped backward - something you'd expect to see from a pop-rock band, proving that while these guys take their music seriously, they also want to make it fun for everybody involved, including themselves.
The band remained as tight as Kaldre's pants for the rest of their performance, which included a cover of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" and two new songs that will be released on their next album, which is currently in the works.
The entire performance was jam-packed with energy, but the right kind - the kind that says, "we're here to play for you," the kind that lets the adrenaline wash over the crowd until you have just as much of an adrenaline rush as the band. That's how you can differentiate between a band that plays music and a band of musicians.
