If you were lucky enough to snag a ticket to Mammoth's stop at Mickey's Black Box you already know: it was something special. Brought to Lititz by local promoter Big Fan Presents, this was very much an underplay: a band that's been filling rooms two and three times the size of Mickey's cramped into an intimate venue on the campus on Rock Lititz, and it was all the better for it.
The five-piece dove straight into "One of a Kind" led by Wolfgang Van Halen's melodic vocals riding over crunching riffs that felt almost comically large for the room. Even at this scale, the band kept their production tight, a mssive backdrop flanked the stage and numerous stage stacked lights pulsed in time with the guitar riffs during the evening.
The set ran about an hour and a half and had plenty of moments beyond just straight-up rock. "Distance" hit different up close, and "Stone" opened with Wolfgang alone at the piano – shades of Nine Inch Nails' Peel It Back Tour – before the band crashed back in for what was easily the night's most crushing moment. "Take a Bow" got a Tool's "Right in Two" interlude tucked into the intro, and "I Really Wanna" and "Like a Pastime" both landed hard.
The encore was a kick hit of "Don't Back Down" into "The End," where Van Halen made very clear he can absolutely shred. With this being one of the final dates of The End tour, and six of the night's songs pulled from that record, it felt like a proper send-off intimate, loud, and exactly what a packed room in Lititz deserved.
Mammoth are the real deal. Go see them while you still can.
