Gorod’s The Orb Release Tour Show Review (2023)

Gorod is one of those bands that don’t receive the credit they deserve. I’ve been listening to them for years, and they always release consistently good music. Plus, they’re killer live! I only saw Gorod once, about ten years ago. They absolutely killed it live. When I saw they were touring again with The Orb Release Tour, I had to see them live. Plus, I saw Flub and Cognitive were also on the bill—bands I’ve been wanting to see for a long time.

Corrupted Saint opened up the show. I have to say, I’m always impressed by our local bands. They’re from Lakeland, and I honestly thought they were part of the tour package. Their sound is very thrashy but technical, so they fit in the tour package perfectly. I saw they developed a crowd and so many people were headbanging.

Up next was a band I’ve been wanting to see for a long time—Flub! I’ve known vocalist Michael Alvarez for years. Not only is he one of the best vocalists in the game, but he’s such an awesome dude.

Flub’s music is absolutely crazy. While it’s brutal, they mesh so many different genres. Every song is different, and it made their live set extremely interesting. While all the members played perfectly, you can tell the band had fun during their live set. Alvarez has a great stage presence; he’s very charismatic, whipping his long dreads around while doing crazy hand gestures. The rest of the band also had a lot of energy, despite the intricate material they were playing. I especially like how their bass player was wearing leopard print pants!

I have to apologize, I was eating when Summoning the Lich was playing, and didn’t make it back to the venue until they finished their last song.

But at least I got to see Cognitive! And they were better than I could expect. As the most brutal band on the tour, their set was absolutely wild. The whole band had so much energy, and it made watching their set so much more fun.

The vocalist and bass player were the most expressive, headbanging a ton and unleashing some crazy facial expressions for the camera.

It was also fun seeing my friend, guitarist Rob Wharton, again. He told me he broke his nose not long before the show and wasn’t headbanging as much, but he still performed really well. He along with Harry Landon unleashed some crazy solos while keeping up the brutal momentum.

And finally, Gorod was up! I was so impressed when I saw them about 10 years ago, I didn’t think anything could top that set. I was wrong, this show was the best I ever saw them play.

First, they played all their best songs. From “Disavow Your God” to “Bekhten’s Curse,” every song they played was a banger. They also played some great tracks from the new album The Orb; they opened with “Chrematism” and also played “We Are the Sun Gods.” It’s so hard to pick a favorite Gorod album, but A Perfect Absolution was the album that introduced me to this band. They played the best songs off that album, “The Axe of God” and “Birds of Sulfur.”

As far as the performance itself, I was blown away as always. How these guys can play such technical music and still have so much energy on stage is beyond me. Singer Julien “Nutz” Deyres is so magnetic to watch live; he does so many great facial and hand movements, and his voice always sounds perfect. The other guys were phenomenal as always. Every riff and drum part was played perfectly, and the sound was amazing.

Overall, I don’t want to wait another ten years to see a Gorod show. If I have to, I will make it out to Europe to see these guys again!