Burn Halo, Rev Theory @ the Town Ballroom 3/5/09

Honestly, I had never seen this weak of a turnout at the Ballroom ever. Actually, it wasn’t too bad once Rev Theory hit the stage, but for the early parts of the night, there was barely anyone in sight. The last time I had seen that little people at the Ballroom was when I saw Saliva there a while back.

Regardless, the bands on the bill were not going to let that stop them from owning the stage at all. Burn Halo, the new band of former Eighteen Visions frontman James Hart, (www.myspace.com/burnhalo) was direct support and they definitely won the crowd over. They rocked the stage as if they were playing to a packed house, and it showed. Following their set you could quite a number of people leaving the stage and returning to it, this time wearing Burn Halo shirts. These guys were surely crowd favorites, and it was their music that got the job done. Their set consisted of material off of their forthcoming self-titled record (out on Rawkhead Records M arch 31), tracks like ‘Gasoline,’ ‘Here With Me’ and ‘Our House,’ which Hart dedicated to the Buffalo Sabres. The band didn’t end their set like I assumed with their single ‘Dirty Little Girl,’ but rather chose to save their best for last by playing the very riff-tastic, breakdown laden ‘Save Me.’

Their set completed floored the crowd, and bassist Aaron Baylor even contributed backing vocals at one point during the show while smoking a cigarette. Now that’s rock and roll.

Rev Theory (www.myspace.com/revtheory) took to the stage next, and while I wasn’t expecting too much from their set, they actually surprised me a bit. Granted, their set was bland and fairly forgettable, but they did enough good things to keep me interested and paying attention. During their track ‘Favorite Disease,’ the band went into a cover of Nine Inch Nail’s classic ‘Head Like a Hole’ that went over very well, then jammed out a cover of Temple of the Dog’s ‘Hungry’ later on during the set. Their cover of the track was almost flawless, and was a great addition to their repertoire. The bands ballad, ‘Broken Bones,’ was one of the highlights of the show, aside from their predictable closer, ‘Hell Yeah,’ which had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hands. The band came out to Guns N’ Roses ‘Welcome to the Jungle,’ which was one part comical and one part sad due to the lack of fans in attendance. New guitarist Rikki Lixx was also introduced and played an excellent guitar solo as well.

Overall it was a solid show for a Thursday night. The world needs more good rock and roll shows, I know I do, and so does this town. Actually, Burn Halo will be back as part of the 2009 edition of the Snocore tour, April 23 at the Ballroom.