Explosions ’09 Tour: Featuring Arsonists Get All the Girls, Horse the Band, The Chariot and Norma Jean
By: Nick Habisch
On a freezing cold winter day in Minnesota, I ventured over to Station 4 to check out the Explosions ’09 Tour featuring synth deathcore band Arsonists Get All the Girls, “Nintendocore” band Horse the Band, and two Noisecore type bands The Chariot and Norma Jean. Having previously been a big fan of both The Chariot and Norma Jean, I was excited to see both these bands, and interested in checking out the other two. Well let’s get onto the show review. The first band up was Arsonists Get All the Girls. They play a style that is basically deathcore, with random synth here and there. Although they were the most technically talented band out of the bunch, their style just wasn’t doing it for me and I found them pretty uninteresting by the third or fourth song. They had talent, but not much of an ear for catchy song writing, although it was really heavy. Next up was the Chariot. Being a Josh Scogin fanboy, and having seen them before, I knew it was going to be nuts. The band seemed tired, but still managed to put on a great show. The guitarists were all over the place, and Scogin, like he always does, put everything he had into the show. Station 4’s ridiculously small stage prevented the Chariot from doing some of their usual antics, like lighting guitars on fire and breaking things, but it was still a very good set.
After that chaotic set Horse the Band was up. This band plays a form of music many like to call “Nintendocore” as it combines synth and 8-bit music with heavy guitars and drums. Like Arsonists, I really could not get into, and found myself more interested in the in-between song banter then the actual music itself. They did have a few catchy songs, but overall the style was too random for my taste. Finally it was time for Norma Jean. Having never seen them before, I expected a good show, but they blew my expectations out of the water. Playing songs off all of their albums, they got the crowd into it, especially on Memphis Laid to Waste. The crowd had been relatively quiet all show, but when that song hit the whole place went ape. It was really fun and epic to see. They played quite a long set, and I was impressed by the lack of mistakes on their part. Overall the show was quite good. It was well worth the $16 just to hear Memphis Laid to Waste, and the rest of the show just added to it.
