Orion Fest Round-Up: Metallica Perform Kill ‘Em All in its Entirety, Infectious Grooves Reunite, The Dillinger Escape Plan Perform Without Ben Weinman
Did you miss this past weekend’s second annual Orion Music + More Festival (presented by Damage, Inc.)? Well so did we!!! Luckily, we can all now live vicariously via the magic of cameras. Cameras: bringing your memories to life since 1826!
So, I’ll give Metallica this: they do a lot of things that, in theory at least, that should be really cool, and were I a less discerning/more sentimental fan, I might absolutely love. Case in point: on Friday night, they gave a surprise performance, during which they played Kill ‘Em All in its entirety. (The performance was announced beforehand as one by a mysterious band called “Dehann” — a reference to Dane DeHaan, star of the band’s upcoming 3D cinema extravaganza, Through the Never.) Presumably, Kill ‘Em All was selected because this July will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the album’s release. The band has previously performed Master of Puppets and The Black Album in their entireties as well, and I know my next choice would have been …And Justice for All or Ride the Lightning [Which apparently they played in its entirety last year. -Ed.], but Kill ‘Em All is still swell, and at least they didn’t commemorate the ten year anniversary of St. Anger by playing all of that album.
Footage of the entire Kill ‘Em All performance is below.
This year’s Orion Fest also saw the long-awaited reunion of Infectious Grooves, now featuring former Faith No More guitarist Jim Martin… who, based on the below video footage, is now basically unrecognizable. Check it out:
Meanwhile, last week The Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman broke his hand, leading most people to hypothesize that the band would cancel their Orion Fest performance — after all, Ben Weinman is irreplaceable within that band. But the band actually did perform, and did so without replacing Weinman, instead opting to play as a four piece. Amazingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be any video of that performance yet, but here are some photos of Weinman sitting by the side of the stage, sometimes with Rob Trujillo, courtesy of Revolver and Mr. Weinman himself:
Whatever that is dangling from the bottom of Mr. Weinman’s shoe has not presently been identified. Nor do we know if he’ll recover in time for DEP to headline this year’s Summer Slaughter tour. I would imagine it’s far too late to replace them with a new headliner, but I would also imagine that the remaining bands on the bill could soldier on, if sometimes in slightly smaller venues than the ones announced to date.
Did you make any special memories of your own at this year’s Orion Fest? Share ’em in the comments section below, while we anticipate Orion Fest 2016’s commemorative twentieth anniversary performance of Load. We’ll be especially stoked to hear “Mama Live” finally performed with a full band and slide guitar, the way God intended.
Major props to The PRP for gathering all of this intel!
