Earthless, Danava, Saviours and Witchcraft at Brick By Brick, San Diego November 6, 2007

First time I've been to Brick By Brick to see a show and the lineup for the Tuesday night gig was stellar. After seeing all the shows at the Casbah, Brick By Brick feels gigantic in comparison. It was nice to have some room to roam around between sets. The downside was they opened the doors about 45 minutes late. I believe the everything did start on time however.

First up was Earthless and their broken-finger-playing guitar player. Back from a US tour (which they said was great), Earthless started off their jam in similar fashion but went into different territories afterwards. Starting with some fretboard acrobatics, they eventually went into some heavy jamming for most of the set. Definitely the heaviest set I've heard from them as it featured less guitar effects, but the excellent soloing was still intact.

Next was Danava whose first album from last year was a welcome surprise when I got it as a freebie. I loved that their bass player was out in front and playing all over the fretboard (fingerstyle!) for their seemingly brief set. My complaint about them, and perhaps this was the soundman's fault, but I couldn't hear the electronics/keyboards/synths very well. Either they really wanted them blended into the sound or something was off at the mixing board.

Saviours, the only band that I wasn't really familiar with, ripped their doom-tinged "classic" style of metal. They certainly had a nice contingent of fans for their set but I couldn't get into them. There wasn't enough uniqueness to their sound to differentiate them from the pack. It was solid metal but nothing that hasn't been done already.

The headliners for the night coming all the way from Sweden was the Black Sabbath and Pentagram influenced Witchcraft. One thing is clear right away is that they are much heavier live than on their records. Once again I loved the fact that their bass player was playing fingerstyle and all over the fretboard. It was their first showing in San Diego and the good turnout for a Tuesday night was excited they were in town. Witchcraft played a great set of tunes from their three full length releases. They seemed to be having a great time playing and hopefully they'll be back again.