Fit for the gods

Thursday night. The Flowing Tide. There was the regular crowd of 800 girls at one table and five or six tables full of two guys way too tough and cool for everyone else in the club. The Gods’ Entertainment? This better be good, I thought. It had better be real good. I had already finished half of my Guinness before the band started playing.

Or maybe “attacking” would be a better word. With no introduction, the band got up on stage and ripped into their first song. It opened with a pounding instrumental, driven by drums and two bass guitars and navigated by a wailing lead on guitar. The lead vocalist, while playing bass, crouched, gyrated and spit machine gun lyrics at the audience. I loved it. Metal lives in Reno!

The God’s Entertainment is bassist Ben Clark, 24; guitarist and backup singer Mark D’Alessandro, 33; bassist and lead vocalist Kyle Rothchild, 21; and drummer Justin Kruer, 21. They have been playing as a group for about a year and a half, in and around the Reno area. Their tight timing and musical uniqueness on stage proved that they haven’t wasted that time.

It was a tough night for the band at first. Rothchild had a cold, the crowd took a while to warm up and Clark forgot their “guest bear,” a stuffed mascot that D’Alessandro claims is the only member of the band who can play. But by the end of their set, after playing songs like “Turpentine,” “Decapitated” and “Evil Disco,” they had a tight group of friends and new fans rocking up front with them. They started with a set list but played to the crowd.

“We might be pretty metal, but we’re all musicians. And we play together,” Kruer said.

The band members also strongly support the local music scene.

“People of Reno! Believe it or not! There are good live bands in Reno! Turn off the soaps! See a band!” Rothchild shouted.

“Support the local … anything. Music, poets, shops. If it’s local, support it,” Clark added.

Band members see the Reno scene as dynamic and alive. After their own set, they stuck around for the next band, Mnemonic.

“We don’t like the competitive nature between bands. We like to support other local bands,” Rothchild said.

While no fire evidenced itself at this show (other than a birthday girl’s shot), the members of The Gods’ Entertainment said they often like to have “spinning flaming things” on stage. They perform with jugglers and incorporate other theatrics, all for the entertainment of little ol’ you and me.

Not bad for five bucks, with funk, metal, psychedelic and even circus-style music all melded into one hard rock show. When asked to describe the band in one word, Rothchild thought for half a moment and said “schizo-melodic-punk-swing-metal.”

“Or just rock,” Kruer added.

Everybody nodded.