Arts & Entertainment

Viva la Cucaracha: Papa Roach rocks at Numbers

By Mauro Alvarez
The Daily Cougar

After two years, Papa Roach returned to Houston on the LoveHateTragedy tour with opening acts Blindside and UnLoco from Austin. The audience of the sold-out show at Numbers was made up of banger high schoolers with a crowd-surfing fetish as well as young adults ready to rock out.

Photo by Mauro Alvarez

UnLoco took the stage first. The bandis claim to fame isnit being from Austin. Its members once drove 20 hours to Austin from Washington, D.C., to open up for Korn and Disturbed on the Pop Sux tour. 

UnLoco got the crowd going with songs off its upcoming album Becoming I. The stronger tracks they played from the album were "Bruises," "Making Me Hate You" and "Texas." They finished the set with their single "Failure."

Next, Blindside started its set. The band opened the show with "Pitiful," the single off of its new album Silence. Lead singer Christian got help from the crowd during "Superman" and "King of the Closet."

Finally, Papa Roach graced the stage. Lead singer Jacoby Shaddix came out with a bass drum and set it on fire. He went into a tribal beat and drummer Dave Buckner followed as the set began with "Single Indestructible Droid." 

Shaddix slowed it down with the wonderfully depressing "Black Clouds" and guitarist Jerry Horton soloed as the band went into "Dead Cell." "Walking Through Barbed Wire" and "Blood Brothers" opened the pits up across the venue and gave security something to do. 

Shaddix asked, "What do you wanna hear?" and immediately the crowd responded with "Last Resort," the knife-happy song about suicide. "Between Angels and Insects" was the final song played. 

Shaddix said, "Viva la cucaracha," as the show came to an end. For all non-Spanish speakers, that means "Long live the Roach."

Papa Roach found it troublesome to play certain tracks off the new CD LoveHateTragedy because of guitar chord overlays, so they added guitarist Mike Doherty to the band after the Anger Management Tour.

"On ‘Black Cloudsi and ‘Life is a Bullet,i Jerry would have had to have four hands to play the song correctly," Doherty said.

Upon finishing this tour, UnLoco will jump on the Music as a Weapon II tour with Disturbed, Chevelle and Taproot.

Papa Roach

Numbers

The verdict: All three bands made for a rockini show. 

 Send comments to dcshobiz@mail.uh.edu