EVERETT – There’s a little humor in the fact that Rockstar energy drink was the title sponsor of Sunday night’s Taste of Chaos concert at the Everett Events Center.
Adding any amount of Rockstar to this display was about as necessary and useful as tossing a single lit match onto an already blazing inferno.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
Nevermind the fact that throat-soothing Chloraseptic might have been a more appropriate sponsor.
More than a dozen bands rocked the arena with virtually no break, starting at 4:35 p.m. and continuing until there were no notes left to shout, and no eardrum left unshattered.
That’s life in the second installment of the aptly named Taste of Chaos, the winter cousin of the Vans Warped Tour that has hit outdoor venues every summer since 1995.
Dealing the last blow was headliner Deftones, a Sacramento, Calif., quintet credited, at least in part, with the new metal movement that spurred the success of every band that preceded them on stage Sunday.
Deftones singer Chino Moreno was in prime form, despite the fact that the band hasn’t released a studio album in three years. Its fifth studio album is expected this year.
Deftones played a spirited hourlong set, introducing themselves to what was likely a new generation of fans with the polished and refined sound of the night. The Deftones had been one of the main attractions on the Vans Warped Tour in 1998, before most of the fans in attendance could stay out until 11.
The Taste of Chaos made Everett its Pacific Northwest home for the second year, drawing about 6,000 fans. Ticket sales were still going strong Sunday afternoon, with young rockers trying to get their hands on one of the most cost-effective concert tickets around.
For $25.75, metalheads could sit anywhere they wanted, try their hands at new Nintendo games on the concourse, sample energy drinks, get autographs from some of their favorite performers.
But the diehard fans took their spots, standing tightly packed on the floor, early and stayed there for the duration. There, they endured even the bands that filled time with 15- or 20-minute sets on a small stage off to the side while the next main stage act’s equipment was set up.
The chaos started early and wasn’t even confined to the arena walls when arriving fans watched an apparently drunk and belligerent young man get escorted out and subsequently subdued by Everett police using a stun gun.
The man laid handcuffed, face-down on the sidewalk near the arena’s main entrance, with the stun gun’s cables still attached to his body for several minutes as fans filed in.
The atmosphere was already charged inside the building and was taken to a new level once As I Lay Dying, a Christian metal band, took the stage at 6:15 p.m.
Story of the Year, Atreyu and Thrice followed on the main stage, paving the way for Deftones. The band touched on all corners of their 12-year catalog, closing with their anthemlike “7 Words,” off their 1994 debut album, “Adrenaline,” of which one reviewer wrote at the time, “Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Deftones are very controlled even in the midst of chaos.”
Twelve years hasn’t changed a thing.
Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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