20 years ago when the Dillinger Escape Plan first emerged from Jersey, they built a reputation off of an intense, aggressive pageantry of a live performance. No frills, no make-up, no bullshit. Just full-on metal chops, strobe lights and a little bit of blood and fire. Anything could happen at a DEP live show, and for the first night of their swan song triplet of performances at Terminal 5 in NYC, they brought the house the down.
The band opened the show with Mike Patton performing the EP Irony is a Dead Scene in it’s entirety. Patton’s collaborated with DEP early in the bands career after singer Dimitri Minakakis left due to the rigors of an intense tour schedule. Patton stepped in, and as he introduced the band on Wednesday night they entertained the 3000 capacity venue with some of the best moments of the evening. When Good Dogs do Bad Things was crushingly heavy during the final, devastating sludge finale of the song. The first of several moments in punishing an audience in awe.
After a heavy hitting cover of the Faith No More tune “Malpractice,” the band departed briefly to swap equipment before taking to the stage with frontman Guy Puciato. The audience was greeted with “Happy Fucking Holidays!” and a bunch of other festive salutations as Guy took to the stage in a santa hat before bolting straight into the crowd for “Panasonic Youth,” and then following it up with “Destro’s Secret” stating “I like it out here!” before starting the latter on the front edge of the audience. His performance throughout the night was controlled, electric mayhem-he knew he had to survive for three nights (“How many of you are here for all three? I hope I make it” he stated during the first break of the evening).
The setlist swung heavy and stayed away from the ‘hits’ while still representing the meat of their career. The band was locked in, Weinneman destroying the fretboard with Kevin Antreassian while Bill Rymer and Liam Wilson hold all the chaos together. It was awesome seeing them crush through songs like “Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants” and “Sugar Coated Sour.” By the time the band got to the epic ending for “Hero of the Soviet Union,” the bludgeoning had only begun. They followed up with the heaviest duo from the 2004 release Ire Works “Dead as History” and “Fix Your Face.” The crowd at Terminal Five was hanging on to every note as the band finished their second set of the night with the thrashy, jazzy “When I Lost My Bet” before taking a few moments off the stage before the encore.
The final two songs were “Limerent Death” (one of only two songs off their latest release Dissociation) and a drawn out “Sunshine the Werewolf.” During the latter, Puciato climbed the first balcony in front of guitarist Ben Weinneman’s family and scaled his way out towards the back of the club. There would be no fire tonight, but we would get one epic balcony dive. Right at the break before the song enters the melodic bridge, some unlucky fan attempted to upstage Puciato as a body dropped from the second balcony above and about 25 feet from the stage. The audience gasped. The body shrugged it off. Puciato laughed, and dove right when the group brought back the heavy as the epic track from Miss Machine ended in feedback and distortion. A fitting close to a first night. Completely satisfied yet desperate for more, DEP would roll out for two more epic performances at Terminal 5 before calling it a career. They certainly knew how to kick the party off the right way.