Emery - The Rhythm Room - Cleveland

This is the last song we’re going to play tonight and a couple friends are going to help us out.” These were the words of Toby Morelle of Emery last night at the Rhythm Room before launching into “Walls,” the song that opens Emery’s debut album on Tooth and Nail Records. As the band and audience readied themselves for what would come next, Josh Head, drummer, keyboardist and backup vocalist for Emery came to the front of the stage. With a crazy look in his eye, he spun away from the crowd hunched over, with both hands on the mic and screamed at the top of his guttural voice, “Are you listening?” There was no place left to go but down.

Emery was back in Cleveland this weekend after a relatively big year from the upstart southerners who transplanted themselves to Seattle where they eventually signed with Tooth and Nail. Earlier in the year they had supported The Beautiful Mistake on a nationwide tour, but after touring most of the summer and taking August off, they are headlining their current tour with Brazil and Name Taken. Although the band is one member shorter than their last stint in a van, they still have five members. Their drummer apparently got married and couldn’t do the band touring thing anymore. Josh Head, the keyboard player, who had never played keyboards before joining Emery, moved back to his more familiar perch behind the drum kit.

The band is still touring in support of their debut, “The Weak’s End” which strikes up a cacophonous balance of melody and torture. Judging by the audience reaction they aren’t sick of it yet. Emery came onstage and blasted their way through most of the songs from the album including, “Fractions,” “By All Accounts (Today was a disaster),” and others before finishing the show with the aforementioned “Walls.” The whole time, the band played with an unmatched intensity and drove the crowd into a frenzy time and again screaming and singing along with every utterance from the three people who sing at various points during their live show.

So, they blasted into “Walls” with a couple guest musicians from some of the opening bands. Instead of the usual five people onstage there were now at least 8 musicians. In the frenzy of the performance of this song, the entire place erupted. The crowd was insane and was starting to fall on the knee-height stage before picking themselves up. The song continued and the band started to fall all over each other while finishing up the song’s histrionics. By the time the song ended it seemed like everyone had fallen to the ground.

As Toby Morelle and Devin Shelton arose to see if everyone was ok and thank everyone for coming out the smiles were priceless. There was no place left to go but down and nobody would have wanted it any other way.

(click below for more pictures)

Comments