Fresh off their hiatus and ready to raise thousands of fists', heavy metal band Disturbed returned to Hartford, CT. What started as an excruciatingly humid day was converted into a unified mini metal festival as Saint Asonia, AlterBridge, and Breaking Benjamin also shared the bill. It had been four long dreary years since Hartford had last seen or even HEARD from Disturbed... needless to say the drought ended tonight.
Saint Asonia had taken the stage a little earlier than expected leaving some fans confused. Fronted by former Three Days Grace front man Adam Gonteir, the super-group also features the New England favorite Mike Mushok (Staind) on guitar as well as Corey Lowerly (Eye Empire) and Rich Beddoe (Finger Eleven) capping it off on drums. Saint Asonia had blown the minds of CT fans during their debut appearance performing such songs like "Let Me Live My Life," "Better Place," "Fairy Tale," and even covering two of Three Days Graces' songs "Just Like You" & "I Hate Everything About You." It sucked for them to have such a short set. I would love to see them return to Connecticut to do a headlining show.
Lightning in the sky had delayed Disturbed's set by nearly twenty minutes. It didn't stop their fans from chanting for the band to start. As the intro video climaxed the band members would make their way onstage. Drummer Mike Wengren, guitarist Dan Donegan, the dreaded bassist John Moyer, and the pierced perfectionist David Draiman appeared out of the shadowed side stage. Cheers erupted as each fan was finally getting what they'd been waiting for; heavy metal.
Beginning their massive thirteen song set was Ten Thousand Fists'. It was quite oblivious that heavy metal had never died when each and every fist shot up in response to the chorus of that song. As if an army of heavy metal enthusiasts of each and every race was willing to fight for vocalist David Draiman. Diving even deeper into their archive of songs, Disturbed busted out "The Game" off of 2000's The Sickness. Throughout the night we would be treated to several other tunes from that landmark album such as "Voices", "Stupify", and the pinnacle of Disturbed's success; "Down With The Sickness."
A highlight for tonight was definitely the delivery during the band's cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence." Instruments were swapped during a brief intermission and appearing from darkness, (their only friend) was the band led by Draiman. Producing a symphonic sound Disturbed carried through the cover making it sound even better than their recorded version. It seemed to be very powerful reaching each and every face in attendance. Cellphones and lighters littered the air adding to the dramatic effect of the song. Such an amazing sight to pair up with a stellar song.
There was a similar moment' when Draiman called for the audience to raise their "lights" whenever he spoke of two words; "the light" during the song that shared the same title. It was perfectly correlated and actually made the heat lightning in the background really stand out. The heat died down a lot toward the end of the night. When Disturbed unleashed the intro guitar riff of "Indestructible" hands in the vicinity shot directly upward. You were either displaying the metal horns or your fists.
The encores for tonight were "Voices" and "Down With The Sickness". Two songs that the crowd knew and loved, and back to back at that. There's never been a larger mosh pit on the general admission lawn area. The three separate pits that had spawned toward the opening chords of their set had now almost blended into one careless pit. Everyone was going to get all that anger... that sickness, out before returning home.