If you’re a fan of live music and can’t find anything to do in Lakewood on a weekend, you just aren’t trying very hard. This past Saturday there was hip hop at The Symposium with Queens of the Iron Mic; blues at the Winchester with The Danny Adler Band; alternative rock at the Bela Dubby with Uva Ursi; and modern rock and metal at The Hi Fi Concert Club with Tilt 360, Mindscape, Drago, and Burden. And just over the Cleveland border on Detroit Avenvue, you had punk rock and death metal with Brody’s Militia, Midnight, and Nuslaughter. For someone with diverse tastes like me, the biggest problem is just deciding what to go see.

I ended up hitting two shows this past Saturday. First, I hit the Hi Fi Club. Drago started things out with a set that blended the classic metal sound of bands like Iron Maiden with some more modern death metal influences. The band sounded good, but lacked stage presence. Definitely not bad for an opening band on an all-local bill, though.

Tilt 360 was up next. Those of you who remember my review of this band’s demo CD in the Observer a few issues back will know that I wasn’t exactly a huge fan. While I still haven’t been converted, I do have to say the band’s live performance at least earned them some more respect in my book. This is a tight unit who know how to project themselves on stage, and while their brand of mainstream modern rock isn’t my cup of tea, the newer songs not on the demo that they played showed more focused songwriting.

After Tilt 360, I headed down Detroit to Now That’s Class. The flyer I saw gave a 9 p.m. starting time for the show, but when I got there a little around 10:45, opening act Brody’s Militia was only about halfway through their set. Oh well, that’s rock n roll. Anyway, these guys were raw, dirty and mean. Even though it was predominantly a metal crowd, the band’s intensity won everyone over. It probably didn’t hurt that they threw in a cover of Celtic Frost’s “Morbid Tales,” either.

Next up was one of my favorite local bands, Midnight. Midnight does their best to sound like mid-80's thrash/black metal bands like Venom, Celtic Frost, Sodom, and Bathory, and they do a damn-good job of it; wearing black hoods that completely obscured the band member’s faces -- Midnight delivered an excellent set.

Unfortunately, I had to be up early Sunday, so I had to miss the set by Nunslaughter. My sincere apologies to the band, as I had really been looking forward to seeing them. Hopefully I’ll catch them in another two years when they play Cleveland again. However, Charles from My Mind's Eye Records here in Lakewood did stay for the whole show. He said, "It was a career encompassing set. Very engergetic. I was totally pumped up."