Coheed and Cambria - Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 - Margarita Kid Reacts

[@jonwangcb]

The chant, into the afro'd crowd surfer, into the Claudio hair flip is one of the great moments in rock history 😂

[@kamikazepolo1]

There's so much back story (with graphic novels and some animation) to all of Coheed and Cambria material. If one just reads the lyrics you get an idea of the depths of this universe (Heaven's Fence) with entire stories, ballads and poetry set to their special musical style. Coheed and Cambria were the 2 main characters but the story of the Fence universe continues with albums like Unheavenly Creatures and even non-universe stories not involving the main characters we've come to know. Absolutely the best concerts I've seen. I'm over 62 and my son took me to Coheed and Cambria, Mastodon, Everytime I die for my birthday a couple of years ago. Smaller theater in Denver but we had to take a break from Mastodon (wow...scream Gothic rock) but absolutely my favorite concert ever, even after seeing so many classic bands at Red Rocks. I hope you discover more C+C...personally I like Toys, Welcome Home, Unheavenly Creatures (song) and Queen of the Dark BUT there's so many! Claudio Sanchez (singer) is from back east, New Jersey area thus any accent plus he can go into a super high falsetto which can be unexpected the 1st time heard, especially after seeing his hair. They're a very tight meticulous band, the bond is felt in their music. Good luck listening and learning about them and other unknown power bands.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Thanks for all of that good info!

[@_worksonmymachine]

@@DadDaughtersandDrinks As fans of the band, we refer to ourselves as Children of the Fence.

[@eskregg]

Thanks for this reaction. My friends and I were really into this band in the early 2000s, they always put on a great live show.

[@nodairyclefairy265]

Great band. Claudio Sanchez (vocals) is an author and has created comic books, The Armory Wars, that all these albums are based on. This song is about a big clash of the rebellion against their opposition, the red army. The main character named Claudio (kind of a self insert) discovers that his family were all slaughtered by the red army when he was in hiding basically and he is hellbent on vengeance. Thus he will do anything to destroy them. While it is a narrative structured story, i think a lot of your observations are not that far off in spirit. There is a lot of allagorical references in the story that are in the realm of war and manipulation and losing yourself, realizing that you are the monster and have been manipulated. Oh, the Fence is kind of like... the star system haha its called Heavens Fence. Silent earth 3 is one of the planets in the fence that claudio was sort of hiding on, so In keeping secrets of silent earth 3, hiding things from the red army. Haha the big whoa oh whoa at the end hits really hard when i imagine the people chanting their war cry charging into battle.

[@adacorfirewind6301]

The song doesn't really depict Claudio Kilgannon's part in the war, as he was hiding on Godder Dam at the time. This is the clash between Inferno's rebellion and Wilhelm Ryan (referred to as "Will" in the bridge of the song), told through the lens of Sizer, Inferno's son.

[@kylec1411]

My favorite band since 2005. Til recently but still in my top 5 :) Amazing everytime. Explosive energy and soaring lyrics. Claudio sanchez is amazing.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Thanks man, that's a lot of great info. The fact that it came from that story makes me feel a little better about not quite getting it. Still a great tune though!

[@_worksonmymachine]

I found it kind of funny that you were wondering where Claudio is from and he's got a Puerto Rican flag on his guitar. Although, he's from New York, doesn't speak Spanish and has no accent. His heritage is Puerto Rican.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Ha, solid point!

[@Coaler73]

I know someone else commented on it but claudio sanchez is a new york native of puerto rican descent, to be more specific. I believe he is a first-gen immigrant's kid.

[@Persequori]

to add to some of these other comments; The vast majority of their albums are a story linked together, the album this one is on is the 'main' story and most widely known, but all 3 'stories' have slightly different feels/listens, i'd recommend trying the others as well. the main story includes the albums 'second stage turbine blade', 'in keeping secrets...' 'good apollo...' 'no world for tomorrow' and 'year of the black rainbow'. afterman ascension and descension are another story in the same universe but takes place a lot earlier. the two newest albums, vaxis 1 and 2, are the first 2 parts of a 5-album story that also takes place in the same universe but much further in the future. to answer a question you had at the end; the line "we were one among the fence" references the mythology of the story - the 'heaven's fence' is the setting of the story, consisting of planets and stars arranged in a pattern called the keywork (this is the symbol of the band, the triangle and circles). That said, a lot of their lyrics tend to have multiple meanings, and "one among the fence" can also mean something like 'we used to sit on the fence but we had to choose sides'.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Thanks man, that's some good information. Do you need to read the graphic novels to get all that, or if I started the albums from the beginning would most of that make sense?

[@Persequori]

@@DadDaughtersandDrinks you can get some broad strokes from just listening, but for specifics i'd either try to get ahold of the comics or look for interpretations online. the first two albums (second stage and in keeping secrets) arent meant to have a song-by-song breakdown of the story, think of it as a score to a tv show. The songs get a bit more plot-coherent starting with good apollo, and it improves from there. the afterman albums have structured plots with story elements for each song, and those should be easy to find online. the vaxis albums are a bit of both - there were official story releases but song-by-song is more going for feeling than specifics (though this varies depending on the song).

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Thanks - good info!

[@throwaway46785]

Star Trek of Rock and Roll! "The Fence" refers to Heavens Fence, which are the 78 planets that the story is set in. Silent earth 3 is one of those planets which is where the title of the track comes from, basically its the story of the battle of silent earth 3. And they say they were one among the fence because their planet was one of the planets of Heavens Fence. Loved the video!

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Yeah, I need to check that comic out before I need to react to any more C&C

[@marcosjaramillo1314]

Ooh nothing like Coheed and a good rye

[@SalientMarlin]

This is a great video and reaction. I love this song but I actually like the way they preform it nowadays.(this video is from the late 2000’s I think. They used to preform the song quite a bit faster then the album version and nowadays they preform it a lot closer to the album version and you can hear just how good Claudio’s vocals are(they have always been good). Please please do more Coheed stuff, they are the best band ever.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

I've got another one coming; hopefully today (might be a little longer if I run into the copyright thing again)

[@Coaler73]

This is actually from the tour as they were releasing the album so this is the original way they'd do it live 😊

[@SalientMarlin]

@@Coaler73 I understand. I just prefer the way they play it more recently.

[@throwaway46785]

Back when they were lumped with metal a lot more and leaned into that. I definitely agree I like the way they perform it now better.

[@clownshoes1of1]

Within this narrative, a "Jackhammer" is a plannetary defensive seige machine. Like a surface-to-air weapon. And you are mostly bang-on with your analysis. This is a "war-is-hell" dirge. The line about cutting throats is always hard to hear but i've always felt good art should make you a bit uncomfortable. It invokes vietnam imagery for me and the terrible way we treated our veterans after coming home and branding them baby killers. You are even not too far off on your notion of the fence being a wall of people. In the Amory Wars saga, The Fence is a type of energy web that binds together all of the planets within the star system that the story takes place. The energy that makes up The Fence is composed of all the souls of the dead. Be aware that Coheed and Cambria's music is chiefly conceptual. Nearly all of their albulms are chapters within the larger narrative. I recommend listening to the album release studio version so you can hear the track clean.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Cool, thanks for that explanation! I do plan on listening to the studio version, although it seems like I might need to read the comic to really understand.

[@J.L.Wolfson]

As far as I remember Claudio Sanchez, the singer, is from the northeast US... maybe New Jersey or New York. He just has a really interesting singing style. It isn't because of a foreign accent. You did a really good job of catching the meanings behind the words even if you don't know the story it is based on. The concepts of war is hell and people being brainwashed into believing the killing is justified. In some live versions of this song they even do a little bit of the US national anthem during the end bit of the song to really bring the message home.

[@DadDaughtersandDrinks]

Ah, cool, good to know. I did hear after this that a lot of the music is based on a comic, so I'm glad I got as much right as I probably could without knowing that.