Man, it’s been a whirlwind these last couple weeks! Smashing Pumpkins, 311, Offspring, AFI, Rise Against, Counting Crows, I’ve barely had time to sleep! However, I did want to circle back to a local show I was able to catch last Friday (9/7) at the Wired Pub (formerly Shamrock’s) in Omaha.
A few weeks ago I met Nate Misek lead singer of Beryllium Takeover and his dad at the HiFi lounge in the BlackStone district. I was tagging along with my wife Virginia to a graphic artist function, so I wasn’t really expecting to get into a music conversation, let alone a heavy metal one. But I started talking with Nate and noticed that he was wearing an older Killswitch Engage shirt. Naturally, I told him about the blog and that he should check it out as I had recently done an interview with Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed. Nate and I started geeking out over shows we had been to, mutual friends, etc.
After a bit, Nate told me his band Beryllium Takeover was playing a show on 9/7 at the Wired pub. I told him I would do my best to make it, but I was covering AFI the night before in Minneapolis. Nate’s dad was super appreciative and so nice. I just knew I had to make it to that show.
So last week came and I was really tired from the drive back from Minneapolis, but I stuck it out and went to the 9 PM show. The first band King Me was pretty good. They had a progressive rock feel with twisting guitars and melodic keyboards. The majority of the songs were completely instrumental, but they still kept the audience’s interest. They were like a young, fresh take on Rush.
After King Me it was time for my new buddy Nate and his band Beryllium Takeover. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had seen a few videos of some Red Hot Chili Peppers covers they had done, but Nate mentioned that he does both clean singing and screams, so I was anxiously awaiting what type of songs they would play.
They started with a cover of “Around the World” by RHCP and it was awesome! The YouTube videos had not done them justice. The bass was on point and their new guitarist was absolutely shredding. The drums were killer, and of course Nate stomped the vocals. He had great clean singing and the raps were pretty good too! I mean replicating Anthony Keidis is a pretty tough task, but they really stepped up and gave the crowd their best.
After Around the World, they played another sweet cover of RHCP’s “Parallel Universe”. Again, they sounded really tight. I know it can be tough to recreate the sound of such a colossal act, but they did a great job with what they were given.
After a couple bluesy originals they played a fun cover of Jack White’s “Sixteen Saltines”. The crowd ate it up! I’m not sure if the last song was a cover or original, but it had super heavy vocals. It was cool to see Nate’s versatility being able to switch from clean to screams.
Like me, Nate has a really broad taste in music which showed in his band’s set, from the funk of RHCP to the garage rock of Jack White, to the super heavy metal of the last song. Hey, variety is the spice of life, right?
I’ll put a link on my upcoming shows page the next time Beryllium Takeover has a show. Do yourself a favor and check it out!
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