Mudvayne Psychotherapy Sessions with Coal Chamber, GWAR, Nonpoint, and Butcher Babies Concert Review
Peoria Civic Center
Peoria, Illinois
Wednesday, August 9th, 2023

 

Grammy Award winners Mudvayne metal veterans return to their hometown and brought the tour called Psychotherapy Sessions. Joining Mudvayne were Butcher Babies, Nonpoint, GWAR and Coal Chamber.

The near sellout crowd greeted Mudvayne. For most of the fans, this was not the first time seeing Mudvayne as they grew up with the guys in the band and followed them their careers. From their beginnings at the now defunct Madison Theatre, the band has won a Grammy and had a lot of success off and on over the years. Vocalist Chad Gray has had an illustrious career with supergroup HELLYEAH that began with Vinnie Paul and Tom Maxwell and Greg Tribbet. HELLYEAH in its current lineup of Gray, Christian Brady, Tom Maxwell, and Roy Mayorga (who took over for the deceased Vinnie Paul) is on hiatus at this time.

Metal music has had a resurgence. Thanks, in part to, satellite radio and streaming services. I know that we disparage streaming services at cutting the royalties paid to artists. But they connect some artists with fans that would never have had access otherwise. This is why metal is one of the most streamed genres on Spotify. It’s also why rock festivals and tours have bands coming back like Pantera, Mudvayne, Tool, and Coal Chamber.
 

 

 

Butcher Babies have been around since 2013 since the release of their debut album Goliath. For a lot of the fans, they had never seen Butcher Babies live and did not know what to expect. They come out looking pretty but absolutely assaulting the fans ear holes with brutal music. While a lot of their latest release Eye for an Eye/’Til the World’s Blind has clean singing, they still love to scream.

Their setlist:
Red Thunder
Best Friend
Monsters Ball
BEAVER CAGE
It’s Killin’ Time Baby!
Last December
Magnolia Blvd.

You have to love when a hard band covers a rap or pop song. I loved it when IPrevail covered “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift. Butcher Babies covered “Best Friend” by Saweeti and it is awesome. Seeing it live is even better. Follow them on butcherbabies.com to find out where they are next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nonpoint hails from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and has been around since 1997. Nonpoint tours relentlessly and they are a favorite band in the area. The band consists of vocalist, Elias Soriano, drummer Robb Rivera, guitarist Rasheed Thomas, and bassist Adam Woloszyn. With ten studio albums under their belt, their catalog of songs is large. So picking just a few songs to perform is hard but they brought in “What A Day”, “Ruthless”, and “Bullet with a Name”. Nonpoint recently decided to go independent to take over full creative control of their music. During this tour, they are offering VIP packages of after show bus hangs. Maybe you can hang out with them. See more on Nonpoint.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up GWAR who are self described interplanetary warriors who came to earth to rid it of corrupt people. I like to describe GWAR as X-rated metal band that reminds me of the movie Mars Attacks! This show they start with a normal earthling and he gets what he deserves for fighting, apathy, racism and destroying the earth with climate change. The band frequently annihilates political figures and talks about what they did to deserve what they got. This show was Vladimir Putin. There is usually a lot of blood colored water coming out of wounds of the people. In addition, this show also incorporated blue jizz and the crowd got covered in it from front row to twenty feet back. The entire front row was bright purple by the end of their set. Their set included an smaller alien simulating fellatio on vocalist’s Blöthar the Berserker’s faux penises of which there are four surrounding an evil looking mouth with fanged teeth. (Just look at the pictures!!) While the show is out of this world, the music is pretty good to go along with the show. Once you see GWAR live, you can’t unsee them! If you want to see who they’ll kill next or what they can think of next, check their website: Gwar.net
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Coal Chamber was formed by Dez Fafara and Miguel Rascón in Los Angeles. There was a very public breakup from a fight between the two onstage in 2002. The band officially reformed in 2011 and played some festivals. In the meantime, Dez Fafara became the vocalist for DevilDriver. Finally in 2022, their second reformation happened when Fafara finally wanted to put the past behind them.  

The band consists of vocalist Dez Fafara, guitarist Miguel Rascón, drummer Mike Cox and bassist Nadja Peulen. Coal Chamber making their return on this tour the Psychotherapy Sessions with Mudvayne. The band came on stage and all the members looked like the older version of themselves except for Dez Fafara. He was barely recognizable with black face paint similar to Indigenous Peoples face paint and two braids in his hair. The music sounded great. Their set consisted of their songs “Loco” “I.O.U. Nothing”, “Big Truck” and “Sway”. Let’s hope their continued reunion produces new music and they continue to tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mudvayne made their return to their hometown, Peoria, Illinois. The town loves rock and metal music and has hosted numerous bands over the years. Old and new fans were so glad that Mudvayne made a homecoming stop in Peoria.

The stage was covered by a large kabuki screen with the new Mudvayne symbol, and\ ‘M’, stylized as an upside down pentagram, inside a circle. Their artwork has evolved over the years and I really like this new symbol as it seems to have a matured energy. The kabuki screen dropped to the band on a simple stage with an elevated massive drum kit in the back middle of the stage and members of the band positioned around the stage. Everyone was dressed up in makeup and had their hair (if they had hair) in different styles.

The band started with the song “Not Falling” which starts with blistering riffs. Chad Gray told the crowd that the title of the tour, Psychotherapy Sessions, was because the fans had saved his life many times. He told them that we could talk to a therapist or buy concert tickets for our mental health! The gratitude conveyed to the audience was appreciated. He said he was probably insane and instead of just watching him ‘lose his shit’ on the stage, he was inviting the fans to ‘lose their shit’ with him.

Nothing is like a live show for getting the endorphins and dopamine flowing into your body. Even if the age of the majority of the fans is more than fifty years old. Chad went into the audience several times and sang to them and people loved getting up close and personal with him. Mudvayne absolutely kept the crowd hyped up and the there was a respectable pit that really got going during “Determined”.

Their full setlist:
Not Falling
Under My Skin
Internal Primates Forever
World So Cold
A New Game
Severed
Death Blooms
Fish Out of Water
Dull Boy
Determined
Nothing to Gein
Dig
Happy?

Everyone sang along to “Happy” and then the band left. No encores and the fans left also on a Wednesday night. It was way past our bedtimes! Go get some Psychotherapy yourself. Find out where at Mudvayne Official

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                

Sources: setlist.fm, wikipedia.org,