The Bled Make Eardrums Bleed

The Opera House was filled with energy both onstage and off last Friday when metalcore quintet The Bled rolled through town with hometown boys Protest The Hero. Though the bill featured five bands, lag between set changes was kept to a minimum and soundchecks were brisk to keep the fire burning well into the night.

The show started off with hometown band and punk rock phenoms, Cancer Bats. Though the room was at about half capacity, the Bats played their southern-tinged punk with gusto and frontman Liam Cormier easily got the attention of the kids in the front. As Cities Burn quickly followed with a fairly generic set of Alexisonfire/Silverstein-esque screamo that most of the crowd was already tired of.

Credit must be given to the relatively unknown Since By Man, whose Every Time I Die-meets-At The Drive-In style of frenetic hardcore won many fans over and got the crowd fired up for the night's main acts.

Though The Bled headlined, it was unclear as to whether the crowd's allegiance was to them or Toronto's (by way of Mississauga) Protest The Hero. PTH were well aware of the hometown advantage and soaked up the crowd's adulation as they grinned cheekily to their screaming fans and ripped into their single, "Blindfolds Aside." While they may be smug, there's no denying PTH's musical proficiency. Yes, they're young and cocky, but they can more than back it up with irrefutable talent and they play harder and better than other bands who only wish they were Iron Maiden.

Focusing solely on their latest album, Kezia, guitar solos were out in full force as singer Rody Walker pranced around the stage, showing off pipes that would give Claudio Sanchez a run for his money. In one final move of smugness, Walker stripped down to his undies and sang their final song, "Bury The Hatchet," in his briefs.

All child's play came to a halt, however, when The Bled strolled on stage and the crowd started throwing down before the band even played a single note, reminding everyone whose show this was. The Arizona quintet showed the kids how it's done by playing an hour of metalcore that didn't let up for a second, and neither did the crowd.

Opening with oldie "Dale Earnhardt's Seatbelt" and then going straight into new single "The Last American Cowboy," the band sounded twice as violent as they do on record, and vocalist James Munoz's voice never seemed to wear down despite the fact he was screaming at the top of his lungs. The crowd reciprocated to the band's onstage energy and, at times, the mosh pit was half the size of the venue's floor.

Nobody played as hard as drummer Mike Pedicone, though. The guy beat the skins as hard and fast as he could the entire time, and probably would have passed out if not for (relatively) softer songs "My Assassin" and "I Never Met Another Gemini," which got lighters flashing for all of a minute before fists went flying once again.

In the end, it's uncertain how many kids were able to hear after the show, but they all went home satisfied in knowing they just witnessed some of the best young bands in heavy music.