Filter
Title of Record
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Red lights and guitar noise flooded the stage. A man with spiky hair in all black leather stormed out and struck a pose, reaching toward the audience. He screamed for the next hour or so.

This is how Richard Patrick of Filter welcomes his audience. He even began the set with a welcoming song, "Welcome to the Fold," off the band's latest unmistakably titled record, er, Title of Record. Through wah-wah guitars, Richard snarled, "Get yourself a nice cold beer / And drink yourself away / You celebrate nothing / You feel a-okay."

Then he shrieked over and over, "Mama, give me my medicine."

His voice and lyrics have the force of a fist punching through a wall… which was actually Richard's inspiration for the song "I'm Not The Only One."

Filter rioted through 12 songs total, each as agitated and fiery as ever. The drummer, Steve Gillis, pounded welts into the drumheads. Intense white strobes pulsed and flashed like lightning as Richard emitted grating growls from within the storm. Geno Lenardo's guitar and Frank Cavanaugh's bass created sonic turbulence. The stage filled with smoke and Richard moved his arms as if he were swimming through it.

He addressed the audience down front as "beautiful American youth culture," and implored them in the song "Cancer" off Title of Record, "Hey my children / What seems important / won't last forever / I am my cancer / I'm the scum of the earth."

An encore of "Take a Picture," the band's first single off Title of Record, was the only song that found Filter in the calm eye of the storm. The band added another guitarist to perform the acoustic strummings for Richard's musical recollection of a rumored indecent exposure episode on an airplane. Richard and the audience reveled in the most angst-inspired part of the song, demanding in unison, "Hey Dad what do you think about your son now?"

And what must Dad think?

Before Filter ravaged the stage, a Metallica-in-makeup all-female heavy metal band warmed up--or should I say fired up--the audience. Keep your eye on Drain STH; these hardcore chicks just might outlive the novelty of their lipstick and long hair.

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