Raven and Riot Act Bring Timeless Heavy Metal To Tacoma (Live Report, 10/6/2022)

October 12, 2022

Last week on Thursday I ambled over to a venue I’d never been to in Tacoma, Washington to see Raven for the second time. The last time I caught them was playing at a festival; this time it was for a tour that Raven was doing in support of the 40th anniversary of Wiped Out, playing the album in full, with Riot Act as a special guest.

Walking in, it was immediately obvious that my fears about poor attendance were justified; even at the most crowded a friend counted less than 30 people in the whole venue, which has a capacity some 16 and a half times that. Despite that, both bands played their hearts out, and I’m hoping that more people catch them at other dates of the tour–they absolutely deserve it. I didn’t take much in terms of pictures because I brought my tripod and just recorded the whole show instead; both of the linked videos in the article are from the show itself. Full credit to the venue, the Alma, and their sound guy, because both bands sounded incredible–some of the best live sound I’ve heard in quite a while.

Opening the show was Riot Act. I’m not very familiar with the band’s original material, but I knew going in that Rick Ventura from Riot (he played on Narita through Born in America) is the main guitarist for Riot Act, and that the band mostly does old Riot songs live. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of the show but I was not disappointed; Ventura has put together an all-star lineup of incredible musicians, and all of them do justice in a way far surpassing what I expected. Singer Don Chaffin doesn’t just have the singing skill and tone to channel that special spirit that Guy Speranza had, but also an aura of rock star greatness to him and a charisma that’s uncommon in the metal scene. If I ran into Chaffin walking around somewhere I would be not only unsurprised but certain that he was a rock star if he told me, and probably even if he didn’t.

The rest of Riot Act are no slouches either. The drummer was extremely tight, the bassist was honestly incredible, and Ventura knows his business playing guitar. I wish that I could have seen the band with two guitars before their other guitarist Louie Kouvaris passed away from Covid-19 a couple of years ago, but even down a man Riot Act was incredible. The new songs that they played were cool, both very energetic and catchy and completely fitting with the setlist. The band didn’t let the small crowd deter them and Chaffin’s crowd interaction was relentless and powerful, pointing at people, calling for singalongs on the choruses of Riot songs, and running around posing. Riot Act were at home playing to 30 and felt like they would have been equally at home playing to 3000. I’ll definitely catch them again given the chance.

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[Editor’s Note: All videos recorded with venue’s permission]

Up next was the main event: Raven! The last time I saw Raven, they were playing a shorter setlist at Frost and Fire in Ventura, California to a pretty full crowd. Although this night, I think I spied them walking backstage before the set looking a little disappointed at the turnout, you wouldn’t have known that they were playing to anything less than a stadium by their actual performance. Raven have been playing for well over 40 years now (hopefully obvious given that I saw them touring on the 40th anniversary of their second album!) and it’s reflected in both their musicianship and in their performance. The Gallagher brothers are showmen, through and through, and know how to fill a stage with only three people. Frontman and bassist John not only sings with a headset mic to give him more mobility–thus letting him run around on stage while they play–but legitimately sounds better in his 60s than he does from the live (and studio, for my money) recordings from the ‘80s! This, despite sometimes playing incredibly complicated and intricate basslines; truly the man is a master of his craft, and it’s deeply inspiring. His brother Mark is no slouch either, and is an incredible performer and guitarist in his own right, playing a lot of really sweet solos and nailing all of the technical riffing Raven has mixed in with their music. Finishing the lineup is their “new” drummer Mike Heller, who has been playing with the band for four or five years now as far as I know. The guy is a monster and there’s no other way to put it. He’s incredibly fast, incredibly precise, and the motherfucker hits HARD- he’s somewhat of a modern legend for a reason (see: drums for Malignancy and Fear Factory, and drum teacher for drummers from bands like Origin, Whitechapel, and Aborted).

They started the show with a mixture of favorites from the early albums–“Hell Patrol”, “Take Control,” and a couple more–as well as with two songs from their newest album, Metal City. Though I’ve seen Raven before and knew that they’d be amazing in advance, I have not heard any of their modern material, nor I had seen them with Heller behind the kit. I had also only seen them in a festival setting without as much freedom as they had at this show. Clearly I need to check out some of their later albums, because both of the new songs fucking slayed- and then came the proper anniversary setlist where things got spicy. Raven unconstrained by a tight festival slot apparently is a lot jammier than I was aware of, and there were a lot of long bass solos, guitar solos, and loose noodling and crowd interaction between songs. These guys are stone cold pros but are not afraid to have some fun playing and it almost feels wrong to have gotten such a killer headlining performance in such an intimate setting, but I’m here for it.

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