Unlike Coal Chamber's pure nu-metal image and association, Mudvayne have always felt like an awkward fit under the banner.
Yes, the Slipknot association was there from the jump (Shawn 'Clown' Crahan overseeing their debut album 'L.D. 50'), but musically they brought as much math-nerdiness as Tool and jazz-fusion chops even they couldn't touch. With this in mind, I was curious to find out who the Mudvayne crowd was at Melbourne's Festival Hall ( 17 February).I expected a healthy mix of OG millennial nu-metal fans alongside the y2k-obsessed Gen Z kids who've kept acts like Deftones as popular as ever, but I saw none of the latter. Instead, it's a lot of burly men with greying beards, colour-sprayed hair dye, and cargo shorts fitted with wallet chains.
The lights go out, and the PA blares with The Chordettes' rendition of 'Mr. Sandman'. This plays through for about a minute before giving out to John Carpenter's 'Halloween' theme, the lighting now strobing red.
The four members of Coal Chamber take the stage, and as they launch into the hypnotic opening bars of 'Loco', frontman Dez Fafara barks his first words to the crowd: "Open up this f...ing pit. I want you leaving here in a body bag."
For a show with no support acts, the crowd needs no warming up. A hole forms in the middle of the audience, and our bravest and drunkest take position at its very edge, holding in wait for the signal to rush. "Shhh... Pull!"
The circle fills in. Bodies collide and limbs are flailing. The opening and first verse is played before the band once again holds for another pause. We're not even at the song's iconic chorus yet, but a second circle is forming, waiting for their cue.
This is the energy Coal Chamber sustains for the full hour of their set, with Fafara giving rallying cries to urge bodies exactly where he wants them: Countless circle pits, a wall of death, and even a direct challenge to the show's headline act, as Fafara yells: "I want them to get nothing out of you."
As someone who grew up with Coal Chamber posters on his wall, this 2024 incarnation doesn't let that expectation down at all. The core line-up of Dez, Miguel 'Meegs' Rascón and Mike Cox were all there, with longstanding bassist Nadja Peulen now matching the time Rayna Foss originally played with the band, filling the role perfectly.
The biggest difference is easily found in drummer Mike Cox's appearance. Having grown into a hulking, muscular figure covered in tattoos and Kinesiotape, he stands in stark contrast to the '90s twink energy that used to mirror that of Rascón. Meegs – with his dyed platinum blond hair and dressed for a funeral in a black suit jacket – has remained wonderfully consistent.
The set comprises their most energetic hits, 'Loco' going straight into 'Fiend', followed by 'Big Truck'. The tempo only drops down for sadistic love ballad 'Rowboat', before again returning to chunky riffs and growling vocals.
The crowd is led in call in response sing-alongs through their many mantra-like choruses, such as the rhythmic title repetition of 'Dark Days' and 'Oddity''s "this is the way it's got to be".
Fafara thanks the audience for their energy after every song, and instructs them to bring everything to the table for the closing two songs: 'Clock' followed by the anthemic 'Sway'. The floorboards of Festival Hall can be physically felt bending and vibrating as the crowd keeps up their end of the deal.
A full band photo with the crowd and the bar is set for Mudvayne to try and top.
Opening their set with the familiar 'Monolith' sound collage that recurs throughout their debut album, and having returned to the face-paint and costumes which shaped that early era, Mudvayne were signalling this was a crowd-pleasing reunion run that aimed to keep the OG fans happy.
The band launched into 'Not Falling', and immediately vocalist Chad Gray's screams were hitting the mark. 'Severed' closed with an extended outro, resting on Ryan Martinie's bass playing while Gray gently sang the final verse again, then blending seamlessly into the opening riff from fan-favourite 'Death Blooms'.
This moment was one of the high points of their set, the crowd roaring as the instantly recognisable riff cut through and interrupted the previous song. Ending with a spoken-word poem, the crowd chanted along with it word for word with Gray.
'World So Cold', surprisingly one of only two tracks performed from their second album 'The End Of All Things To Come', was another high point of the set, with Gray asking the crowd to light up the venue with their phone torches. He closed the song by crawling from the edge of the stage into the first few rows of the audience to sing the ballad with them, engulfed in outreached hands.
Gray's current stage costume mixes bandages and face-paint to create a gruesomely effective look that both references his original 'L.D. 50' era appearance while also seeming to draw a lot of influence from the recently deceased WWE star Windham Rotunda aka Bray Wyatt, (in particular his The Fiend persona). Where he used to be a skinny guy with just a handful of tatts, Gray has evolved into a burly bruiser wearing overalls to show off his heavily tattooed body.
Martinie, the band's virtuoso bassist (and subject of many a "yeah, nah, but he could really play" conversations since Mudvayne's first run) looks untouched by time, a beaming smile smacked across his face as he slapped and tapped his way through each song.
Martinie's unbridled enthusiasm was one of the things that absolutely made this set, while also being the only member to really acknowledge and interact with the fifth player onstage – Marcus Rafferty. Handling additional guitar and backing vocals, and seemingly under strict instructions to not move away from his little corner beside the drum riser, Rafferty's presence was a key difference to Mudvayne's original run.
Clearly having the chops required to be a for-hire guitarist and singer, he holds the set together with his backing vocals singing under Gray's screams. Conversely, original guitarist and founding member Greg Tribbett performed with the charisma of someone who'd have rather been anywhere else.
While Gray and Martinie were bursting with energy and running back and forth from each side of the stage and interacting with the crowd, Tribbett looked bored. His playing reflected as much, to the point where I figured this could be the reason for the addition of Rafferty.
Gray's time as the frontman for Hellyeah, the Pantera-lite drinkin' metal band, has allowed him to hone his working-the-crowd skills, delivering a number of speeches through the evening, giving those in attendance permission to let go of their trauma, to leave life's "circumstantial bullsh.t" outside, and to feel safe releasing themselves in the moment.
True to the name of the tour, this was to be 'Heavy Metal Psychotherapy'. One such speech led into 'Nothing To Gein', in a way asking permission from the crowd to not be judged for the vulnerability his performance was about to entail.
The song ended with him curled in fetal position, screaming the closing lyrics ("Life of a simple man, taught that everyone else is dirty, and their love is meaningless. I'm so soiled.") out of time with the band.
Closing out the night with 'Happy?' followed by (no surprises) 'Dig', there was no faulting Gray's performance, but Dez Fafara's threat to steal the headliner's thunder early on had proved to be a promise.
Judging from onstage energy and chemistry alone, if only one of these bands were to parlay their current nostalgia reunion tour status into another legitimate run, my money would be on Coal Chamber to find success in it.
Still, the lonely image of Gray standing on the stage after 'Dig' peeling off the remaining bandages and flakes of face-paint to toss into the crowd will be a lasting one.
