Welcome to Thirty Stones
May 06 '02
The Bottom Line Thirty Stones rocks hard. Look for yet another band to emerge from Western Mass.
In an earlier review, I talked about seeing an up and coming band called Split Shift. It was an awesome show, but one thing that added to the awesomeness was the opening act. Another metal band from Western Mass. called Thirty Stones kicked off the evening in heavy fashion to warm up the rowdy crowd. Although Split Shift put on an incredible show, I couldn’t forget how good the opening act was. I wanted to hear Thirty Stones again.
When it was time for the radio station I work for to pick out a final concert for the school year, I suggested Thirty Stones. We had not yet hosted a metal act, and I thought this band would be a great way to close the semester. My guess turned out to be correct.
They put on a terrific show, performing original material in between covers of popular rock acts such as Staind, the Deftones, Linkin Park, and Sevendust. They closed the show with a cover of Alice in Chains’ Man in the Box as a tribute to Layne Staley, who had passed away a week before. The covers were as tight as if they came from the original artists, and their own stuff rocked just as hard. A staple cover at their concerts now is Tool’s Sober. Their version of this song is so good that I stipulated that they had to play it if they accepted the gig. They did not disappoint.
They joked around quite a bit between songs providing some welcome comic relief in between the angry tunes. They even performed a little bit of Love Shack for crying out loud.
Unfortunately, the crowd was not as big as we had hoped for, mainly because so many other on-campus events were happening that night including a healing priest with stigmata. It’s hard to compete against a guy who’s made headlines in the National Enquirer. But the rock fans who were there agreed that seeing Thirty Stones was well worth skipping the stigmata guy.
The band joked about competing against Mr. Stigmata on WAAF a few days later. Yes, that’s right. They were live on WAAF, one of the top stations in the country. The Sunday night show “Baystate Rock” has been spinning Thirty Stones’ Waste for a while now, and the band was invited for a live interview and acoustic performance. Hopefully, they’ll catch on enough to move beyond Sunday nights and into regular rotation.
The band is comprised of four members: Keith Hopkinson (lead vocals), Andrew Freeman (guitars and vocals), John St. Onge (bass), and Johnathan Girard (drums).
A few weeks before the show, I bought their first album Welcome to Someday so I could get the band some spins as promo for the show. Since it’s older and not as well produced as their newer material, the band doesn’t promote this album very much. They didn’t play any of these songs at the show, and they no longer have the songs available on the website. However, it is a very enjoyable CD, and if you like the band, it can’t hurt to plunk down the ten bucks for a copy. Songs like No Way Thru, Mute, Threnody, and Wait Forever are definitely worth a listen. They bounce between slow, dark sounds and loud, heavy ones. There’s some slight influence from Korn and such bands but without the rapping – this is straight up rock.
Welcome to Someday is very cool, but their new stuff sounds even better and heavier. Waste is the one that has been getting the initial radio play on WAAF and other local stations, but it seems that One Second might take the band even further. Fan reactions have been very positive for this track, which has a catchy guitar part and awesome, nearly Staind-like vocals that shift from soft and eerie to loud screams.
Although their best material is the hard stuff, they are still very good at slowing things down as they do on Bound. This is a great swaying song since the music moves along melodically, especially with the chorus: “I live on a string/ I live in between.” 94 picks up the tempo slightly but cranks it way up at the end with death metal-like screams.
I’ve listed only a few songs, but I must say I like all of Thirty Stones’ work. It doesn’t sound perfect right now, but that will all change once they get more exposure and can get better studio work. I am even more confident in their sound because of how great they sound live.
If you’re looking for a versatile metal band that rocks hard with both covers and originals, check out http://www.thirtystones.com to learn more about Thirty Stones.
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Member: Matt
Location: Kentucky
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