I saw the tickets go up for sale for Starset at  Granada in Lawrence and the first thing that came to my mind is “How the hell do they make any money off that ticket price?”; seriously $16 a piece and the venue is 1700 capacity:I guess they plan on making money off their merchandise. Anyhow so Angie and I head off to check out Starset and some group I have never heard of “Razorwire Halo“.

Well I was wrong about the idea of these bands making money off their merchandise. What is with these bands going on tour and not having merchandise that shows the date of the show? I want to buy a shirt to wear to gain the envy of others that I was there and they were not. Sigh.

Here is the initial setup in the, ah, dive seems to be a good word for Grenada:

The screen in front of the stage threw me. Initially I thought it was a throw screen like I have seen at some punk shows but once Razorwire Halo took the stage it proved to be something that added distortion to the video they played throughout their entire 40 minute set:

You know when you have friends and they think they have a band that others want to hear so you go over and endure, ah, I mean listen to their collaborative noise? That’s pretty much what I thought about Razorwire Halo. Their efforts to feel “Rock ‘n Roll” seemed too forced to me, not natural. Perhaps they are like wine and will get better with time (read; more practice).

At any rate off with them and onto the set setup for Starset:

The middle box (I assumed, correctly, where the drum kit was setup) was interesting looking. I didn’t expect they would play videos against it from the inside of the box (videos projected from the inside against the walls of the box synchronized with the screens on each side of the box). Super cool effect:

Oh did I mention that most of the Starset band wears spacesuit type outfits? Sure it’s a bit odd the lead singer wore a bowtie the entire time and the others are in spacesuits but points for being different. Kinda a gimmick sure but its neat to watch them light up in sequence and to difference parts of the music:

Every so often the drummer box would turn off the lighting and the effect of the drummer be lite up would be seen through the box, making a neat effect:

Starset was great. Dustin Bates, the lead singer, was energetic and he did a good job keeping his vocals and (is shouting the right word?) “yells” in check. Not often you see a hard rock band keep a violinist and cellist on stage for the entire set but several times they added some excellent ambiance to the music. They mostly did stuff from their “Vessels” release, which is great by the way. Overall a definite repeat for me if Starset passes near by again.

Me and my Angie using the fancy selfie camera lighting to try to take a snapshot in the dark: