Coheed and Cambria

Avalon - November 5, 2008

Live Review by Alexis Roberts

Coheed and Cambria (the choice band of sci-fi comic book fanatics) chose Los Angeles as one of the four cities that they graced with their Neverender Tour. The tour consists of playing four days at the same venue in four different cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and London. Each night of the tour, they play a different album in its entirety. This is either the ultimate for the fans or incredibly self-indulgent; the jury is still out on that one.

However self-indulgent it may be, the Coheed fans did not seem to mind. Prior to the show even opening on day 1 at L.A.'s Avalon, the room was ablaze with excited kids waiting for Claudio Sanchez’s familiar triangular shaped head to bob out onto the stage and start singing "Time Consumer." Coheed’s music blared through the speakers before the band even started playing as pictures of the band were projected onto the screens behind the stage.

The Second Stage Turbine Blade was Coheed’s first full length and arguably their best, but also probably the least recognized of their four albums. That did not stop the band from selling out the first night with no problems whatsoever (they would also go on to sell out the other three nights of the tour, in Los Angeles as well as in their home state of New York). 

I have probably seen Coheed and Cambria nine times in the past, and with every show, it seemed that they gained a bigger and bigger audience. The last time I caught one of their shows was a handful of years ago at the Palladium and that show paled in comparison to the first night at the Avalon. Their fans have grown to be diehards like the types that you would see at an AFI show. They wear the merch, they have the tattoos, they listen to Coheed in the parking lot before and after the show. They are true ’till death and most of them are dudes, which is funny because I’ve always believed that Coheed had a quality that was very appealing to female listeners.

They played the album, just as promised, chronologically from start to finish and even included the same interludes that you hear on the album. This was clearly a well rehearsed and impressive act, in which you never saw or heard them miss a beat. Their stage show appears to be much more refined and thought out than it was in the past. They have grown into a band that really looks like a unified group on stage.

Highlights included the album opener "Time Consumer." Old-time fans like myself were also incredibly eager to hear "Everything Evil" and "Delirium Trigger." To play only for 45 minutes wouldn’t be their style and once they concluded their promised set, they delivered an encore featuring popular singles from their other albums.