If you have ever seen a show at the Trocadero Balcony, I’m sure you had the same first impression as Cheap Shot! and everybody else who has ever walked up those steep, creepy steps to the “stage”: HOLY !@$* THAT STAGE IS SMALL! It’s tiny! Even for a solo artist - who is performing alone with no band. So imagine taking a band that has two guitar players (one who is the vocalist, THANK GOD), bass player, drum set and an additional percussion drum set and making it work on this stage that is practically as big as a really huge progressive rock drum set (see Mike Portnoy or Neil Peart). That wouldn’t work, right? Maybe tell the percussion to take the night off? Well you’re “Wrong Alright” (a song off Three’s Half-Life) because Woodstock N.Y.’s Three made it work and completely rocked!

Fresh off their successful tours with prog masters Porcupine Tree and before they trek off with Dream Theater, Opeth and Between the Buried and Me for the “Progressive Nation” tour the band (Joey Eppard – Songwriter/Vocals/Guitar, Billy Riker – Guitars, Daniel Grimsland – Bass, Gartdrumm – Drums/Vocals, Joe Stote - Percussion, Keyboards) stopped at Philly on their mini headlining tour of the east coast of the U.S. and some parts of Canada on November 29th, 2007. The group has played in the Philadelphia area a few times this year at the Electric Factory, Grape Street in Manayunk, Atlantic City and now The Troc Balcony.

Prior to the show Cheap Shot! interviewed front man Joey Eppard which made this show even more exciting than a headlining Three show can be! The show opened up with Auradel and Pittsgrove/Elmer, NJ’s Athem, a prog metal outfit who could definitely give Dream Theater and Symphony X are run for their money! They fit all kinds of different music into their shred fest and truly impressed everyone there with their technical prowess. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about this band coming onto to the prog metal scene hard in a few years.

After a long setup or “how are we gonna fit this on stage?” period, Three hit the stage at about 9:50PM and started off with the first two songs from The End is Begun: “The World is Born of Flame” and “The End is Begun.” The two songs flow into each other perfectly, which is actually one of the main highlights of the album. These two songs really get you going to dive into this great record. Basically, there is a sort of march beat at the end of the first song that fades into the next song - where Joey plays a funky acoustic slap riff - and witnessing it live only makes me appreciate it even more. The way he plays these complex rhythm based guitars parts and sings like he does is highly impressive.

Billy Riker keepin' cool during a lead

Guitarist Billy Riker is a master of guitar effects. You can kind of get the idea by his huge pedal board on stage. He also has a fan blowing toward his face on stage, right in front of him, and it makes his hair fly back – it don’t get any more bad ass than that. I didn’t get a chance to ask Billy what the point of it is – to keep his hair out of his face or keep him cool? Probably none of those. Point = to just be completely B.A. on stage. That he is.

Riker is one of the few guitar players I’ve seen live who uses all the effects he has at hand on the pedal board. He gives Three the most traditional guitar approach and gives the band more drive, since Joey uses his fingers and when *CHUGGA CHUGGA* or *DUN DUN DUN* parts are needed, he is there to provide the \m/...or, when an atmospheric, spacey part is required, he can turn his guitar into a keyboard with his mastery of his effects units.

“Alien Angel,” off of Wake Pig, followed and this was the heaviest song of the night. The band really kicked in gear, and everyone’s ears started to burst. Three are way too powerful and energetic for this stage. If you see them for the first time and go and listen to their CD, you will be kind of disappointed because they have yet to completely reproduce what they do live on tape. The End is Begun is right there, though.

Billy Riker (left), Joey Eppard (center) and Daniel Grimsland (right) are all smiles at the Troc Balcony

“Battle Cry”, “All That Remains”, “My Divided Falling”, and “Live Entertainment” all followed and took care of The End is Begun material for a little while. Then, it was time to go back to their tremendous Summercamp Nightmare album. Joey commented that he'd recently gone back and listened to the album, and thought he really needed to start playing those songs again.

They began with “Halloween,” which was a step up from the album version, by far. The chorus on the record is laid back and softly spoken but, live, Joey and bassist Daniel Grimsland added so much more energy and aggression to it and changed the dynamics of the song completely. They must rerecord or release a live album including this song, because it was just incredible. “Bedroom In Hell” followed and wrapped up the Summercamp Nightmare portion of the show.

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