Wacken Open Air 2008 - On The Turning Page of History

Hopefully not too late, here's the report from this year's W:O:A festival.

This year saw Wacken in flux, still strugging with the growing pains of being a mass-festival and at its own attendance cap. Some, like me, wish that the festival was still cult, free from Massenfest bullcrap, but you seriously can't turn back time, and it's best just to face it and move forward. Infrastructure-wise, this year's fest was much better than last year's. Musically, it may have been the best Wacken ever. Even those few who got their tents burned up will likely agree that they'd do this one again, even with the loss involved.


-- journeyman's day has begun --

7/29
still in Beverly

When I was doing up the ghetto watchlist in the back of my notebook, having forgotten somehow to print out a real running order, the Wacken site was groaning under the load of everyone in Europe printing out their running order sheets as a last preparation for the trip tomorrow. Right now, and continuing all over the world, in little towns like this people in black shirts, packing kuttes and camping gear, are straggling into the capillaries of the world transit net, trains and buses to airports and railheads, being the exception for now

Then we concentrate: a handful in Boston, NYC, DC, and Newark, more in Frankfurt and Amsterdam and London. And then Hamburg, and the Hamburg Hbf, and the Metal Train roars in, and the metal diaspora roars on behind it, turning everything pointed vaguely at Itzehoe into the Metal Train. Wacken's shadow population is reassembling, and aint it nice to be coming home.


7/30
Hamburg

1. A comparison shot, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. On all the other tracks, it's all normal people, but on this one, weirdos in black and boots are the rule. Not all Germany is all metal all the time, but in this pic, the population of festival-Wacken happens to be passing through Hamburg.

On the train north, I inadvertently separated a Spanish (I think) couple by figuring out how to operate the seats in the passage between cars before they did. I felt bad about it and wanted to give them some stickers as a peace offering (though they weren't mad about it or anything), but I wasn't sure we really had a common language.

2. The vastly-improved bus stop. While we made it fun last year, it really was a complete fucking mess; now, there's a beer tent and you get your ticket before trying to get on the bus, which runs a lot more frequently. It's perfect for every purpose except hanging around and passing out stickers.

3. Neublick W:O:A -- already all camped up. The picture's a little misleading; I was able to get my tent up in area A, the camping-only part, without much difficulty or crowding.

4. Victims of Madness, the W:O:A forum-band, doing "Restless & Wild".

5. The outside areas were dry, though...

I set up in good time enough to go get some food and try to see Sweet Savage, and these guys were on first, probably the very first band (well, technically) of the festival.

Victims of Madness [3/7]
This was a band with a floating lineup organized out of internet forum participants, probably without a whole lot of practice, so while some of their covers were decent, some were downright atrocious. Then again, it's a bunch of amateurs who don't practice, warming up in a tent while people drink and try to get a handle on the festival; not much expected, so the good parts were welcome.

Nur in Wacken nr. 1:
A guy appears a "Jesus" in a serape, then goes running over tables naked. He kisses some dude, and nobody calls him a homo for it. Because even though Euro metalheads are only marginally more gay-friendly than their American cousins, streaking on tables is fuckin' awesome.

6. "Jesus" kissing some dude.

It's only Wednesday, people; things are only going to get wilder and weirder from here.


-- living in the golden years --

7/31

7. Iceland in da house. Sure, it looks like just Norway, but I think it's just backlit; it was a blue field and a red-on-white cross live.

8. Perimeter defense.

A general tip: Hessians are cool, but their wine is garbage. It is a very good thing to not drink a 750mL of, especially if you've already been drinking beer previously and will drink beer heavily afterwards.

Instead of seeing Sweet Savage, I ended up going back into the campground and drinking entirely too much apple wine with some random German dudes. Not the world's most optimal pickup, but besides the shit wine, it was a pretty fun time.

As the sun went down, I decided to go back to my tent, but first made a stop to meet the American friend of one of the guys from a neighboting site. He turned out to be from Maine (and subsequently, Rostock), and this led to a lot more alcohol consumption. We were going to go on an Entdeckungsreise to see where else the party was on, but I think that fell through because everyone was too drunk. Hey hey US-Ossis!

This left me with the problem of stumbling back to my tent completely potted. Fortunately, I had planned ahead and camped way on the side, making it relatively easy to find. Unfortunately, it was way on the other side of the campground, which is long even when you're not drunk in the middle of the night. It took a while, but eventually I got it handled. Good times in Wacken.

9. Infrastructure improvements everywhere.

The foregoing pic is a bit of a joke, but the truth is that this year's services setup blows away even last year's. Last year, Wacken was a city; this year, with ATMs on the grounds, the festival is more or less self-sufficient. On the one hand, it's good that we can get whatever we need without leaving the grounds -- or bothering the locals -- but I'm worried that the isolation will result in a loss of the cultural identity of the fest, which makes Wacken Wacken and not Metal-Camp.

Things rock now, but I've still got a bit of W:O:A-Ostalgie for the way things used to be. I was here in '05 for the last "small" Wacken, probably the last under 40K that there ever will be, before the newspaper, before Wacken-Beer, when the Metal-Battle was small and before branding took over to the point here everything that can possibly have the cowskull on it does. Fortunately, we've still got good people and good music -- "Kommerz" and "Profi-Fest" are just words.

My tenting neighbors are Canadians, and not just any Canadians -- they're from frickin' Calgary. And if you think that's hardcore, they had another random Canuck come by, one who was on a personal mission to find other countrymen. He came from Whitehorse, which for those of you who weren't geography-bee champions in middle school, is in the Yukon Territory. I don't know whether coming in from the North American Siberia is more or less impressive than the trip from Korea or New Zealand, but it's damn close.

10. Spelling matters. There's big meatballs, and then there's big meaty balls.

11. Eddie taking pictures. If you're going to show up in costume, be prepared to be the center of an ongoing photo shoot.

Most shirts here are from at least moderately well-known bands internationally, but I still just hailed a Finn in a Devourment shirt. Horns up for the underground.

12. Proof I did something useful -- RTTP stuck to a hot Danish girl.

13. What the hot weather is good for.

Among the Danes, I also met Martin (not pictured) from Dawn of Demise, who I hope to see circulating in the US imminently; I've yet to hear a bad band on Deepsend, so they'd probably do quite well in the US underground. If you wear a Deepsend or Pathos shirt out in Europe, expect to get called over. Good times.

Additionally, I got a tip about Slogstorm, potentially Norway's answer to Composed (a thoroughly competent death metal band whose lyrics are mostly about fish) and also likely the very northernmost band in the world, based on the north coast of Norway and thus substantially more poleward than Murmansk's Old Wainds and Nav', from Bjorn, a freelance photog/album art director. If you'd like cheap art direction for your band's album, he might be able to do some up for you; drop me a line if you're interested in his contact info, so I don't have to put it out in public and draw him spam.

14. Nashville Pussy showing some.

Nashville Pussy [4/7]
They came off better than that one record that I had from them a long while back, showing that they've gone beyond the name gimmick and into the quality provision of dirty rock'n'roll. Unfortunately, they don't really set themselves apart in this regard. They're better than Lauren Harris -- also playing in this slot -- but that aint saying a hell of a lot. and they won't be headlining much on their own any time soon.

Concept Insomnia [4/7]
Concept Bodomfans must have been taken. There were also a few In Flames elements, but not enough ot sufficiently original to make any kind of difference.

15. Negura Bunget and the stage crew working out some strange micing requirements.

16. It's Negura Fuckin' Bunget!

17. With the pipes!

18. The flute guy gets into the act.

Negura Bunget [6/7]
A tremendous set to a packed house. A few tech bits held it back from absolute perfection, but the music was fucking ace, and the band truly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the reaction. This is why there's a tentstage -- and like Primordial before them, the next time NB comes back, they'll have an infield in front of them.

19. The audience goes bananas before Alestorm.

20. "They have a keytar."

21. Alestorm rocking from behind a camera crane.

22. As above, but out of focus.

Alestorm [6/7]
This band is going places. Their extreme-tinged pirate power metal draws largely from Blind Guardian and Running Wild (to the point of them stealing Rolf's intro -- got to admire the balls that it takes to crack out "We're Running Wild, from Jamaica" in the heart of the Brotherhood's catchment area) with little bits of Ancient Rites (the Dutch one) and Bodom in around the edges, so it's good stuff, but more importantly for their prospects, they get into it and are genuinely glad to be where they are. The drummer and vocalist/keytarist can -- and did -- just jam on "Drunken Sailor" and get the whole room jumping. Though they haven't reached their full development as a band yet -- there's still a fair amount of Battleheart material in the set, and some of it is pretty basic -- they already have huge presence; they looked at this sideshow like an arena, played like it, and got an arena reaction. If Cap'n Rolf doesn't sue them for trademark infringement, we'll see these guys on a mainstage soon enough.

23. 70,000 wait rapt.

Being at Alestorm meant that I couldn't get any closer to Maiden than I'd seen them from in Boston. So I fought my way out of the infield with no little difficulty and decided to see them from the beergarden. This turned more into not seeing them from the beergarden; first the Irish underground legation arrived, and then some Germans, among whom Anneke felt like using my back for a chair back. When one thing leads to another, it generally doesn't start this strange, but there's Wacken for you.

First, the Irish. If there is a funner ethnicity to be part of, I am not aware of it yet. This bunch, who had assembled themselves on Mike's initiative (I'd seen him running around earlier under the flag, yelling "Irish! Irish people!"), were for the most part deep undergrounders -- Neville mistaking my TYAG shirt for Waking The Cadaver, and not going lol wut when I corrected him -- and definitely displayed the power of synergy: ridiculously amped up on festival and going off in all directions, consensus by volume and adrenaline. "We hate Aiern Feckin Meidin! Let's feckin drink some more! Where can we git some feckin weed? Oh Lord, I'd fuck that so hard -- show us yer tits! Can't fecking wait for Carcass!" The foregoing is a paraphrase, but gives a pretty decent picture into the converstion. Fun fuckin dudes; maybe we'll meet again, maybe not, but if so it's gonna be a blast.

Anneke, though, I definitely hoped to see again, though I didn't; there seemed to be a little more there than there was with Monika last year, but as previously other things somehow managed to get in the way. Oh well, oh well; and seriously, you don't go to this festival to try and become romantically involved with people from other continents.

Iron Maiden [6/7]
It was hard to not consciously watch this show, especially after they got the sound sorted out so that it would carry all the way back. Maybe not as good as it would have been on the rail, but I'll take Alestorm, Negura Bunget, affectionate girls, hellacious dudes, a ready supply of beer, and still Iron Maiden from half a mile back all the same.


-- sing to the slaves that Rome burns --

8/1

It's pretty clear that after last year's trial run at max capacity, the organizers have radically redesigned the infrastructure of the festival. From better provision for international guests (more tenting-only space) to expanded breakfast points subcontracted out to local merchants to wider spaces and more signage, the entire support system of the festival has been reworked. This is a true A-line setup all the way, as it should be when it's for certain the hottest ticket in metal. One expects that this well-oiled system will become a major draw as the satellite fests expand.

Yes, that's right. Faced with a global fanbase and the hard reality that moving out of this literal one-horse town would kill the festival, Wacken is now branching out worldwide, with W:O:A Rocks , beginning probably with Australia, maybe before the end of the year. Failing that, Brazil (German-language article) is on the list for May 2009, and the US is reportedly a target as well. Hopefully, they can make it work and not have it come off as corporate franchising, but we'll have to see.

24. Primordial messing around on "The Soul Must Sleep" during soundcheck.

25. Primordial step out.

26. The Prophet Nemtheanga on "Gods To The Godless".

Primordial [7/7]
Until Carcass demonstrated what a score would really have to mean, this set was under consideration as a potential 7.5. At any rate, this was an impeccably delivered performance of life-altering material that cannot really be explained after the fact, merely experienced live, right in the middle. This outing was heads and shoulders above their already really good set from 2005 here, which while great wasn't as absolutely awe-inspiring as this. And the Irish guys I'd hung out with Thursday night see them so often that they passed this one up to go watch Grave. Ridiculous, but other people might say the same about Revocation in a few years.

I wanted to see Mortal Sin rather than just hearing them incidentally, but camping the first row for Cynic is much, much more important.

27. Cynic checking.

28. Cynic, together again.

Cynic [7/7]
There's little that can capture the feel of this one beyond just "pure joy". There is no metal like this anywhere in the world, and Cynic haven't missed a beat in the decade-and-more since they originally hung it up. The new stuff is as worthy as the old, so the new record's gonna be intense -- here's hoping they do a proper tour, so that others can get this amazing experience.

29. Paul Masvidal, metal hippie. There's also a cropped version of the original of this, which I'm using as my desktop background; maybe it'll be released later.

These last two sets were of such amazing quality that on top of Carcass (to come on Saturday), three of the best four performances I've ever seen were encountered at this festival. Cynic closed with light rain, which blended sublimely with the music, but became heavier during the set change and as Unearth got started.

Unearth [4/7]
Due to the weather, I couldn't really circulate and rttp people, so those who missed Killswitch's set on Saturday may come away with a bad impression of Boston metal: formulaic and self-pleading. It's reading a bit much into the atmosphere to consider it of any meaning, but the heavy rain largely both started and stopped with Unearth. It may have discouraged movement on the field, but that didn't mean that the band had to pretend to be playing their last song like five times.
I was going to do a weather adjustment down, but really, it's not their fault.

Ensiferum [6/7]
A good set, but from back in the beergarden, they kind of lose something; at least there weren't any adjustments for injury that needed to be made, unlike the last time I saw them here.

Kamelot [4/7]
Decent, but not super inspired. The tech execution was pretty much first-rate, but Kamelot, like a lot of other power metal bands, pretty much leaves me flat; like Symphony X, but not as good or as aggressive.

Sabaton [5/7]
I was expecting more than a more solidly grooving Bodom based on their prior press, but good neo-death is decent no matter what. They've got more potential than they show, but all this means is they've actually got room to develop.

So I put a couple RTTP stickers out on the bar and was going to split, but before I could make a clean getaway, these dudes came up and took them all, entirely; "ruining hardcore" as a sleeve stripe on each, and the big "bleed for the camera" is currently covering up the heart on some guy's Nightwish shirt. Wacken, man; strange things happen.

Soilwork [5/7]
Still pretty much so much Krach, but they still know how to play it. It may be a gut reaction to the devolution from decent NWOSDM to average modernistic melodeath, but it's probably not super useful to blame these guys and their career trajectory for what's happened to Cryptopsy and Kataklysm.

Sonata Arctica [4/7]
I'm still not terribly into them, and they didn't play any of the songs I do dig, but at least they were all in tune throughout this time around, which quite discouragingly is a notable update over the previous live appearances I've heard from them.

I tried to survive Sonata in order to get to Opeth, but decided to call it an early night. Lack of sleep fucks you up, and with the end of Saturday being what it was, I needed to be up to full strength on the turnaround.


-- worlds within us, waiting to be born --

8/2

30. Somebody got the wrong impression from "Lords of the Weed". It's not that nobody here smokes, but there's no haze over the fest of "24/7 Flash", as implied by the minute of two of mention in said German online video.

I got up too early again today, but the weather looks better -- hazy but cool -- and a rigorous schedule will keep me functioning. If I can get to Carcass, I win; they're sadly under-famed in Germany, so I can camp the rail until Kreator finishes. So it's Holy Moses, then Exodus, then sleeping on a picnic table through Obituary. Oh well; sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

I dunno -- if this is the price of success, it may not be worth it. If it isn't, then I guess it just sucks. I'll explain:

A while ago, I wrote a Wacken guide for the international traveler, which included a recipe for vodka-tea. This morning, the supermarket onsite was out of tetrapaks. It's probably not just me, but letting others in on how to drink cheap in the infield may have come around to play some small role in biting me in the butt. At least I have water, and while it isn't chicken, at least it's ohne Gas.

The best part of going to Wacken on your own is that you're free to fall in with whoever, whenever, and just go along for the ride (well, as long as you can speak German, which goes a long way in rolling out the welcome mat with a lot of those present). This morning started with a good rest-up, then some drinking with a bunch of Germans, including the only Madball fan of the festival, who also couldn't stop talking about Slapshot. This led into a quest with a local boy -- proud wearer of a DORF wristband -- to find an ultimately nonexistent bodypiercing stand. (People are forbidden to produce wounds that frequently get infected in normal settings in an environment filled with mud and filth? Who made that rule up?) Note that this is the non-shaggy-dog version; everything seems longer and dumber when you're drinking in the morning.

Among the organizational changes: mud is now solidified with sand and wood mulch, probably due to the fire last year. Issues with crowd pressure during Maiden may drive a change in crowd control measures next year in a similar fashion; we'll see.

31. How lazy people waiting for Exodus see 3 Inches of Blood.

3 Inches of Blood [5/7]
Even the band must wonder sometimes how they've gotten out to this point, from HXC kids doing a piss take to serious (but not fahkin serious khed) dudes drilling out thrashed-up NWOBHM at the world's biggest metalfest. It's still good, of course, but they're definitely in that "why again?" category with much of the rest of the thrash revival.

32. Wait, this bunch of old guys isn't the same bunch of old guys as Exodus.....

Sweet Savage [5/7]
The first late-lead replacement (for Stone Gods, who dropped, not like anybody cared) I can recall at ths fest,they didn't silence the EX-O-DUS! chants, but they did play some decent rock-NWOBHM and managed to hold interest despite doing "Breadfan" as their second song. They did hold onto "Killing Time" for the closer, but it's just not as good a song.

33. Sabine and the boys start some shit.

Holy Moses [6.5/7]
Split scores? At Wacken? Say it aint so! Regardless, this was an awesome performance held back only by the fact that Holy Moses' catalog material isn't exactly among the world's best or most diverse. But boy do they have some fucking awesome headbangerriffs. Total neck anihillation, and you love every minute of it.

Holy Moses' set was so balls-out that I had to go back to the beergarden on my previously established schedule, even though Exodus was up next on the True Stage. I'm not so young anymore -- and even with a broken knee I don't know if I'd be able to restrain myself if they did "Piranha".

34. Gods of Wacken; to stand on tables with beer in hand is a privilege granted to few.

Protip: if you're at a Euro festival and an Italian asks you if you're from Italy, don't answer "no, I just haven't washed my hair in three days". I was thinking of doing so but reconsidered.

Exodus did play "Piranha", and despite being back in the beergarden, I banged my head like a maniac and got beaten with a sandal. Wacken, man; good times.

Exodus [6/7]
Another blasting good time; I'd've loved to have been down front, but really good music is really good from the front all the way to the back.

Because I wasn't thinking, going back had an unforeseen consequence: instead of Obituary I got Hatebreed, because in a weird reversal of norms they were on the Black Stage (probably for capacity reasons) and Obi was over on the Party Stage. With de facto three main stages, you'd think they'd be able to align the bands a little better.

Hatebreed [5/7]
Hatebreed's Hatebreed; what more do you want? They did a fucking badass conclusion to the set ("Defeatist"/"I Will Be Heard"/"Live For This" in I think that order) but the rest of the set was just the same brutal hardcore that they innovated initially, but have been mostly content to just grind out since. It was decent, but if you're from the East Coast, you don't need to go any farther than your local VFW to see this, much less out to Wacken.

35. Hatebreed cranking through "Doomsayer".

Maybe those asking for more antifa in Wacken are actually onto something -- just saw some guy in an Odin's Law shirt. Seriously, Odin's Law? Why do you have to go and be a hardcore racist? The hell's wrong with Graveland or Skrewdriver and just being a standard-issue dickface?

It's pretty scary how many people moved for AILD and how few are camping Carcass. Was wird mein W:O:A? Maybe you can't get 70,000 hardcore underground troopies at 100 euro a head, but with Maiden, At The Gates, Carcass, and Kreator, not to mention Cynic, Negura Bunget, et al, you fucking ought to be able to. Less Kommerz, more metal!

The Carcass infield is so empty that some wannabe Erotikmodell is doing a photoshoot amid the tiny knots of death metal crazies. Tits or GTFO -- preferably the second, as she hasn't got much going on in terms of the first. Seriously, I don't understand anyone here who isn't also on the rail -- though it does make for less fighting for places.

In Flames [4/7]
As I Lay Dying [4/7]
I thought In Flames wasn't playing this year, and what a crummy set -- wait, this is AILD? Oh, ok, alles klar. It's not my fault if they sound exactly like second-rate modern In Flames, and it's not my fault they were playing while I was camping the rail for Carcass, and thus disposed to toss all subpar Swedecore into the same rubbish bin.

Carcass [7.5/7]
Wow. If all Carcass shows were like this in the days of old, then how far, how far have we fallen. Even the Swansong material sounded incredible, and though they were up for over an hour, at the end the infield was still running in peak form, ready for them to just ignore the start of Killswitch and just keep roaring on until their inheritors (Jeff: "Here's a riddle for At The Gates and the organizers -- which came first, the chicken or the egg?") in ATG came up behind them. With some special guest appearances, this was definitely an experience on its own, and if you only see the touring version, you'll likely miss half the sense of the Carcass reunion. Split scores north of the cap? Better believe it; this wasn't, by a hair's width, the equal or better of Atheist's epoch-making performance two years ago, but it was better by a long shot than any other gig that's been scores a 7 -- and we had two of the 'highest' sevens in history just yesterday.

36. Carcass' guys checking.

37. The security huddles up to prepare for the coming storm.

38. Carcass, reunited at last.

39. Angela Gossow chips in on guest vocals -- either the feud's over, or the rumored million-euro guarantee has made Jeff more sanguine about the whole business.

40. More of Angela and Jeff not killing each other.

41. Mr. Kenneth Owen playing his drums.

42. Ken comes up to receive the acclaim of the 70,000.

Ken's solo wasn't super long or complicated, but considering what he's had to come back from, it was pretty fuckin' amazing. If he tours along to where you're at, be sure to stand up and give him a hand.

Just missed the most meta shot ever -- a picture of a pro photog shooting some fans shooting the video wall rather than the band. Now that's some fuckin postmodernism.

I don't think I've heard it before, though admittedly I haven't heard much Killswitch, so if Howard doing New Bedfid BREE BREE BREE growls is new for KSE, it is officially the most hilarious thing ever. Emo took them to the top of the charts, and now to stay there they need to imitate people imitating Dan Pevides.

Killswitch Engage [5.5/7]
The second of the True Stage bands to get the "'83 Metallifan" treatment (back turned, sitting down, at least for the first half of the set), they were surprisingly decent, if silly in places. You really forget, especially living in New England, how little of their catalog is written to suck on the radio, and how narrowly removed they are from the Boston underground. There's a reason I was sitting down -- that I'd be sitting down in the beer garden if At The Gates wasn't on next -- but as metalcore goes on this, they blew AILD out of the fucking water.

43. The video wall at the soccer field. From the end of the Black Stage, the angle is just right to see all the way across. Note the clouds; there was rain from this but no storm.

44. ATG Im Effekt.

45. At The Gates, as it was.

46. The crowd puts 70,000 horns up. This was lit differently when I set the shot up, but stage lighting, what are you gonna do?

At The Gates [7/7]
Klasse. Indeed, super-klasse, as they did "Unto Others" here, which had been cut from at least some Stateside gigs. The sound was great as usual, but the total effect wasn't as absolutely dominating as Carcass was. Just a shade of style maybe, but there was no way you could justify being onside and missing this.

47. In the flames of the end...

The outro was obligato -- the synchronicity with the cowskull maybe not.

48. You don't get to be the #1 thrash metal band in Germany by fucking around on your cab allocation.

I promise these and following festival shots from tonight are what they claim to be; this is the inherent problem of using a non-profi camera at night and at a distance, especially without anything to rest it on.

49. 100% old-school fuckin set dressing -- you got your three-up Marshalls, and "scrims" and "banners" can go fuck themselves.

Nightwish [5/7]
Mostly a long distraction while waiting for Kreator, Nightwish did play a decent set within the parameters of what they can do as a band. The setlist was all hits, and Anette is an unambiguous upgrade over Tarja, but this band just doesn't interest me that much; the material isn't worth watching live, rather than on the video wall waiting for...

50. ....KREATOR!!!

Kreator [7/7]
Another incredible set from these guys, and surprisingly very different from the last time around, even though they're still technically touring on Enemy of God. Mille must have seen that idiot with the Odin's Law shirt too -- we got not only "People of the Lie", but also "Europe After the Rain" and a strong antifa position between songs. Not sure, but I think it's been a while since they did "Betrayer" live as well. Add an encore with "Impossible Brutality" and "Flag of Hate" into "Tormentor", plus pyro almost strong enough to melt the first row, and what the fuck more do you want from an incredible closer to an incredible fest?

I was going to hit the beer garden for Lordi, but by that point (1:45 AM), I'd been on the rail, mostly standing, since about 4:45 -- nine hours, and completely worth it. Unfortunately, turning off several biological systems for that length of time kind of fucked me up, and with Kreator over, I was completely drained of energy -- back to the tent to try and sleep a little and not die on the way home.


-- stranger in a strange land --

8/3

51. More postmodern folk art, this time on the way to breakfast.

52. Letzter Blick -- see you next year.

Next year is allegedly a best-of for the 20th anniversary, but no bands have been announced yet; we'll see how this goes. If it's anything like this year, though, another early sellout is assured, especially since they .

Leaving was actually pretty easy; the buses came fast and regular, and the line was controlled for more order. There was still a pigpile on the train, but what are you gonna do? The regional train authority hasn't made clearing Wacken-traffic a priority -- yet.

53. An old wooden spire on the way from the subway to the hotel. It's not Wacken-related, but if you cross oceans for a festival and don't notice anything else, you're a twit. I walked past what looked like a jail about a block later, but took no pictures, not wanting to look any more suspicious than I already did.

54. The loot; not too much merch this time -- too many good bands to waste time shopping. The shirt, though, may very well have been the very last shirt from this year with the whole lineup on it, and I was damn lucky that the choice of the last two was XL and XX, so I could give the bigger shirt to the fat guy and still end up buying one that I could fit into.


8/4
Logan again

Dude, was that seriously just The Acacia Strain picking up their axes from the oversized-baggage window? For Boston, for Boston, huh. Unfortunately, this was in the international baggage zone, and accordingly crawling with bored cops seeking to justify their existence, so I couldn't very well pull out my camera and get some proof.


In the last analysis, this definitely felt like the last year of Wacken as it was and the first year of Wacken as it will become. It was a great experience, and probably the musically best that I've attended, but so much changed in the infrastructure -- and so much is yet to change with the demands of dealing with 70,000, not all of whom are the old Kuttentraeger cult that the festival was built on -- that it really seemed like a different fest. Cheerful but solid organization replaces cheerful anarchy; it's what they have to do for sustainability, but what was so special in the past was learning the ins and outs of the holes in the system, conquering difficulties, so that by the second time you're on site, you are part of Wacken, and can help out the noobs as they muddle their way around. You learn what's where in the village, and when's the best time to get money from the ATM, and what your bare-necessities camping supplies are -- and which little kids to pay to pedicab your beer back to the gate. You learn patience -- and practice for the train -- managing the pigpiles at the bus stops, and drink a few beers with people you might not have talked to otherwise. You still have to master the art of standing on the edges to get to the rail and move smoothly between bands, but that's about it. To a certain degree, it's good to get people up to speed in what it is to be a Wackener faster, but seriously, one fest is all it takes. Yes, the traffic improvements were necessary, but you get used to stuff being a burden, and then it suddenly isn't, and the skills that you developed to ease that burden and work around the difficulties feel devalued.

In the past, Wacken was a cult fest, and a pretty hard fest. Not super-hard, but about as hard as you can make a festival that has its own bus connection to the train stop. Now, winning national awards for best festival and hosting Iron Maiden, it isn't exactly 'cult' any more, and making it hard, still, would be rather egregious. With the international expansion coming next year, maybe it'll get more German, but I doubt it; Wacken will continue to grow into the most elite gathering of 70,000 the metal world can provide, and those like me who want a still-cult festival will stay another week and do some bumming around Germany before arriving in Bad Berka for Party.San the following weekend. Actually, this is going in the official plan -- a bigger pack, a night in Hamburg to wash up, Monday in Berlin, Tuesday and Wednesday hanging out in my old haunts in Dresden, then on Thursday on to Weimar to pick my way in; on Sunday retracing my steps to fly out from the DD Monday morning. Who's in? Passport, good attitude, and your own camping gear required, everything else is dealable. Russia to around the world can wait another year.

Final totals
Wednesday: 1 band, 3 points, average 3/7
Thursday: 4 bands, 22 points, average 5.5/7
Friday: 8 bands, 43 points, average 5.38/7
Saturday: 11 bands, 63.5 points, average 5.77/7
total festival: 24 bands, 131.5 points, average 5.48/7

This is the fewest bands that I've ever seen at Wacken, due to missing so much of Friday night, but there's so much quality in the mix that is still has to be respected.

Deathamphetamine with Witch Tomb, Zircon, and Razormaze [O'Brien's, Allston, 7/27/2008]

Though I didn't end up picking up any merch for export, this was still a killer show and a first-class personal sendoff before what is shaping up to be about the biggest and best Wacken ever. More on that, of course, when I get back from said fest.

For this one, I got in a little early, despite a bit of traffic and having to do the two-mile march in wearing my normal jacket; it had been raining earlier, and I also needed to get into festival shape of wearing the full-weight kutte despite the heat. It wasn't so bad, and though I was probably about the first paying entrant, it gave me time to sit and rest up before the bands started.

Razormaze [5/7]
Probably more due to bad luck than anything else, I hadn't seen this band yet -- and based on this set, not seeing them is something that metalheads ought to generally avoid. Drawing from old Metallica, mid-period Testament, and classic Iron Maiden, this was a ripping set of old-school thrash that, if it didn't exactly provide much new (or, admittedly "noticeably different from Warbringer or, say, Fastkill"), still definitely rocked. Very few of the thrash revival (or, to kill a meme flat dead, the NWOHSTM -- new wave of high school thrash metal) bands do melodics the way these guys borrow from Maiden and Ride The Lightning, which will help set them apart to the point where they find more of their own voice instead of the echoes of yesteryear.

I love thrash metal, and I think that people playing it in the old style in the present day is awesome, even when they're significantly younger than me and weren't alive when Reign In Blood was released. I'm not sure why old thrash has come back; hopefully, this isn't just a trend, and these bands will continue and develop, and maybe take their later direction in a different, but just as interesting path, than the way that thrash evolved at the turn of the '90s.

Since Razormaze had patches, in addition to more normal merch, I had to pick one up; unfortunately, I don't have the time before I hit the road tonight to figure out where the hell I can fit it on one or the other of my jackets, let alone do the requisite sewing. If you buy kutte parts, people will make more of them.

Zircon [7/7]
Wow. I hadn't seen Zircon in nearly a year, since their gig with Wolven Ancestry at Ralph's last year, which was the first show after Wacken 07, with this being the last one before the 2008 iteration. In that time, they'd been pretty quiet, mostly known for members being out on loan to bigger bands. Anthony may be with Belphegor near-full-time, and out of Zircon now, but Scott is back, and the time spent as the voice of Vital Remains definitely shows. The band had amazing presence, putting up large-hall force in a dive bar, and the music was viciously awesome, covering, if I heard it right, mostly new stuff since their last split, as well as some older stuff. The tone may be reminiscent of Immortal in some places, but that's seldom a bad thing, and the music is Zircon alone. Looking ahead at the show calendar, it looks like these guys are going to be active again, and, like Revocation (get well soon Anthony) extended activity at this level is going to lead to interest from good labels if any kind of justice prevails.

Witch Tomb [6/7]
Zircon set the bar damn high, but Witch Tomb nearly equalled them, putting forth a top-class set of raw, dirty black metal. As either a concession to the heat, or an assertion that the music dominates over the visual, they weren't blacked up, not even Cody, which is interesting considering how their more usual visuals meshed with the music, and was probably the one implementation of corpsepaint that actually worked in an American underground context. It, of course, didn't have any negative effect on the music, but the one significant takeaway from this set was that it felt too damned short. Though I eventually appreciated getting home earlier, another 10 minutes from Witch Tomb (and also from Deathamphetamine, later) would have made the later time worthwhile.

Deathamphetamine [6/7]
At their last last show, back before the Skybar closed, Deathamphetamine was a five-piece; they're down to four now, more thrashy with less death and hardcore, and looking for a new name to distinguish the new era of the band from the old. It's tough picking a name that's both good and original, but in point of fact the band has a bit of freedom in this regard given how good their fusion of thrash, death, and hardcore is. Again, as with Witch Tomb, it was a little surprising and disappointing when they closed up; I really thought they were good for another couple songs. Abstractly, it's better to leave the audience wanting more than to leave them glad you finally stopped, but the way these guys were going on this show, it's difficult to think of someone who could get bored with them, and more difficult to consider this hypothetical wet blanket coming out to O'B's in the first place. There will be other shows, though, and this one certainly didn't lack for awesome.

Afterwards I hung about talking with some of Summoning Hate's crew -- and apologizing because I'm gonna miss them at the Midway on account of At The Gates opening for Carcass opening for Kreator 4000 miles away -- and then stumped back across the bridges to go home. Good show, and my gear is packed; barring luggage loss, injury, or other accidents, I'll have notice of how Wacken went up in about a week, and pictures and a full writeup after.

Composted with Covenance and Burial [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/17/2008]

There are probably a million and one slam-related puns that could be made on this show, even setting aside the ones that Composted made from the stage. Let it suffice to say that this was a kickass Metal Thursday, and one at which a ridiculous amount of slam was passed out.

That being said, there is no guarantee that the author's purely vestigal sense of humor will be able to refrain from making slam-related jokes further on in this review.


Getting in to this iteration of New England's best regular concert series was a little tougher than normal; the DPW apparently decided that Thursday evening was a grand old time to tear up large parts of 128 and the Pike for resurfacing. The drivers trying to use the road did not agree, and as a result it was getting a little late when I finally pulled in to Ralph's; fortunately, the bands hadn't started yet, and I was able to unwind a little -- including picking up a couple interesting records from Oak Knoll -- before they did. Unfortunately, this was because Archaeon had to drop, which was kind of a bummer. I was also a little surprised to see the way the running order sorted out, with the touring band on next-to-last; on the other hand, they probably took one look at Composted's past history and shrewdly said "yeah, we're not going to try and top a local supergroup that dresses up in costumes and still plays good music, we'll take the next-to-last slot and get our van packed up earlier."

Burial [6/7]
In their last show under this name, Burial, veterans of long standing (thirteen years under this name, or since several members of Archaeon, who were scheduled to open, were last in kindergarden), put up a quality set of death metal bridging the gap between Suffocation-style brutality and the slam that would dominate the rest of the bill. Some of their material wasn't the most inspired, and their slam breakdowns definitely came off the third best, but this was a solid outing of death metal that should have eminently satisfied any brutal death fan in attendance. Unfortunately, they didn't have any merch, probably looking ahead to the name change, but they're definitely a band to watch out for.

Covenance [6/7]
There was a decent interval for set change between the bands, but as Covenance went on, the show changed gears sharply, from trad-brutal-death plus slam to slam plus hardcore. The floor got more violent, and the breakdowns a little better managed, but the main difference was in style rather than total level of execution. They may not have been quite as on as their antecedents in Dying Fetus and Misery Index, but this was still an awesome slab of slam/grind/death that would have easily overpowered most other bills even in this style. They're on tour for the next couple weeks, so if they're at a bar near you, go and get your ears blown out.

Too much of Covenance's merch is free for a band touring in an era of $4.20/gallon gas. Their CD is free, which was cool, but I'd've gladly dropped 3 to 5 bucks on the seven-inch (also free) in addition to the ten for the shirt. They're to be applauded for their DIY dedication, but sometimes you do need to eat food too, and metalheads certainly won't begrudge good bands for charging reasonable prices for good music.

Composted [6.5/7]
Composted has probably never heard of Rapid Charlie, and will no doubt be slightly saddened by the fact that they are not absolutely the first band to introduce pool noodles to heavy music. However, Rapid Charlie's knifers and conductor never put their noodles to as good or violent use as the audience did here, which is probably due to having a very special crowd, one that is as fine with turning a dead beachball into a keffiyeh as with whipping people with it, and one whose first instinct on seeing a stray flipflop in the pit is to beat themselves in the head with it. Composted, as might be inferred, was in luau gear on this outing, but still as usual passed out simply retarded amounts of slam. They've really got the interplay of breakdowns and pileups down to an exact if chaotic science, and if Rich spent less time destroying food with his forehead in this set, he spent more of it as a real co-vocalist, a uniformly positive turn for an already killer sound. This was not a perfect set overall, but it's easy to see how someone could get that impression if they were downstairs at the start when the sound system decided that Eliot's bass was just bringing too much slam, and decided to stop working for him. Once this was ironed out, yeah, it's hard to think of how it might have gone better, especially since they had the time at the end to grind through a couple unreleased TYAG (RIP) tunes.

The low point, if there was one, of this set was towards the end, where one of the girls in the pit collided with Crazy Dan when she wasn't expecting to and munged up her knee. Fortunately, the injury wasn't so critically bad that the bar had to call for the SLAMbulance. (See, I told you; no escaping the horrible slam jokes.)


I picked up a bunch of stickers from the Rev for the Sonderwerbeaktion Wacken; now to make up a sales pitch to convince Europeans to check out metal photography from the Americas. Unfortunately, Composted was pretty much out of stickers, so I'm not carrying over any bandmerch yet; fortunately, this means I still definitely have space. I was at a friend's wedding this weekend, so no shows, but there may be one or two this week before the last declared opportunity on the 27th.

Smite The Righteous with Our Final Chapter, My Pet Demon, and Eyes Sewn Shut [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/3/2008]

Blame my laziness more than the Fourth and assorted pileups for the lateness of this review; nevertheless, it's done now, because this week has some cool show content on a close schedule.

Attending this Metal Thursday was a more stress-free proposition than usual, as I didn't have to go to work on Friday. The holiday weekend, unfortunately, probably adversely affected turnout, as this wasn't really a peak night for attendance, but those who did come out saw a pretty killer show. As Eyes Sewn Shut set up, I talked a bit with the MPD guys, pawed through Oak Knoll's distro and picked out a couple CDs, and also weirded out Jeremy and Blue by laughing at a disclaimer written in German on the back of a CD with the rest of its external text mocked up in Hebrew (Nazibands FTL; nix koennense sogen, allerlei trotzdem erkannt). I didn't pick this one up (obviously), but did end up with a demo from Covenance (next time's headliner) and a NEDF flier -- need to find out more about Providence in order to find out how much of the fest -- weekend right after Wacken -- I can make it down for.

Presently, the bands started, first those who I'd seen before.

Eyes Sewn Shut [4/7]
I'd seen these guys a while back at Mark's, which was a place not conducive to optimal performances by, really, any band. They got, if I recall correctly, exactly this score, but didn't demonstrate, as they did here, as much why this should be the case. ESS did a decent set, but the whole was not greater than the sum of the parts; the individual performances were strong from each member, but the songwriting wasn't really up to the same standard, with, as before, the Pantera cover at the end of the set coming through the strongest. This was a basically entertaining performance, but it was overshadowed by the bands that followed them, and if they don't develop further and differentiate themselves from other death/metalcore bands that can't stop thinking about Pantera, this situation may repeat on further gigs, which likely isn't the outcome the band is looking for.

My Pet Demon [6/7]
The following things, the Worcester crowd should understand from this set to not be past their "Expiration Date" here on the North Shore:
1) Hockey hair.
2) Neil Young a la balls-out.
3) Kickass melodic thrash metal.
This probably graded out a little lower, but a 5.5 here is not really worth opening up the legended Split Score Keg of Worms; what matters is the impression that MPD made outside their core catchment areas, and this was pretty good. Sticking only with material from the last two records (as might be expected), they did their half-hour-and-more with a minimum of downtime, and until Pat's bass started cutting out during their final song, free of technical difficulties. Unfortunately, if you're going to have issues with bass functionality, about the last song you want it in is your Iron Maiden cover, which did run down the mood a little bit. They had an uphill struggle here out of market, on a bill that didn't really flow to their strengths, and a slightly depressed turnout, but they pulled it off, and hopefully made a good and lasting impression.

Our Final Chapter [6/7]
The short and highly inaccurate version of this band is "Connecticut hardcore in a Metal-Thursday-style spin pit with Hydra Head"; much of their stuff was fairly direct, but very well-finished musically, and while they had the first major crowd motion of the night, those who weren't thrashing themselves out had a lot of technical tricks to enjoy along with the slamming breakdowns. The newer material was really good (though maybe a little whacked out -- 9/11 wasn't an inside job, even if the tragedy's been cynically exploited for political ends since), and their upcoming record is definitely worth watching out for if the live performance is a fair representation.

Smite The Righteous [5/7]
The show wound up with these guys, who've been zu Gast here a couple times, though as yet not when I was down. They started off simply but effectively and stayed true to form throughout the chaos down front; New England NWOSDM in the style of bands like Beyond The Embrace before they decided to be Metallica, Life In Vain, The Accursed, and innumberable others, maybe up to the level of Shadows Fall. There's nothing wrong with this when it's done well, and this was done well enough for good times, bruises, and broken glass that fortunately we were able to get under control before anyone fell into it. They didn't have any demos or anything available as I saw, which was a shame; they came out at that "cool but not especially memorable" level, and it'd've been good to get a second look at them on record, where I could give full attention to the band rather than having also th worry about getting wiped out by doods flying around and slinging themselves off poles.

As the music died, I checked myself for injury -- no joint problems despite not wearing my brace to this one, and no bleeding from the feet after using my fat soles to pre-mop the shattered pub glasses. Other pit-wall dents were too minor to mention, and it was one in the morning after seeing a bunch of cool bands and thrashing to some cool music; how Metal Thursday goes, and this was definitely a good one.


The show calendar is a little confused upcoming; I'm definitely down for Revocation at O'Brien's Wednesday, but whether or not I go to At The Gates is kind of up in the air. I'm glad that Wacken is coming, and that I'll see them there regardless of the plans of my non-metal friends for this weekend. We'll see.

Iron Maiden with Lauren Harris [Twee--, no, Comc--, ah, fuck it; Great Woods, Mansfield, 6/20/2008]

So, forty days and forty nights before I'm due to see them again, hopefully from at least no further away, I caught Iron Maiden on the next-to-last North American stop of the current Somewhere Back In Time tour, and it was quite as awesome as might have been expected. Maybe I should have planned my caffeine supply a little better, and maybe I should have swung it so I didn't have to get up at 6 AM and spend a total of like 7 hours driving on the day of the show; maybe I shouldn't have drank quite as many beers, or indeed maybe should have taken at least some consideration of the fact that I was still sick, but if you get yourself hung up on 'maybe's, you are never going to get anywhere in heavy metal, certainly not as a performer and not really as a serious fan either.

The day started, as mentioned, quite early, as I had to get some stuff together and then drive halfway across the state to pick up my youngest brother, who started at his grad-school radar lab a little earlier than we had anticipated when blithely setting up this concert excursion. Still, it wasn't so bad going out and back, and it beats the hell out of actually working on a Friday morning. After dropping off his laundry and hanging about with the family for a bit, we headed down.

Despite the fact that we hail from the North Shore and the venue for this show is practically on Cape Cod, requiring that we do not only the Boston-beltway-at-rush-hour but also the Cape-on-a-Friday drives (which those from the area will easily recognize as potentially suicide-inducing), the traffic wasn't that bad, and we got down in good time, enough to get some merch (and balk at the prices -- $125 for a Maiden football strip? Someone should tell them they're not a real team, let alone in the EPL and "entitled" to charge like that) before heading into the venue. Since we had seats rather than having to fight for places on the rail either on the lawn or in the pit, we took the chance to drink some beers and run through a bag of peanuts before going in to wait for the much-dreaded opener.

Lauren Harris [3/7]
I'd apologize to Steve for hanging a low rating on his daughter's band, but if the man still has any integrity left (or any hearing, incidentally), he'd probably agree with me. If you like retreaded '80s hair-rock, this might have been enjoyable, but even in the '80s, Maiden had the middle finger up to hair rock, and this should not have changed -- it certainly hadn't for most of the fans here. Lauren certainly looks good in leather pants, but she can't sing, and her band was composed entirely of over-the-hill bottom-feeders who were having occasional trouble making it up to the standard of 'competent'. The main blessing of this set was that it was short, but four songs from, say, Machine Men would have been much better than four songs from Lauren Harris.

There was a short break here where we hit the head, ate more peanuts, drank a bunch of hefeweizen, and saw a couple people we knew, and then repaired back to the seats to wait for the lights to go down....and then up on....

IRON FUCKING MAIDEN [7/7]
They came out to the strains of "Losfer Words", then stuck to the setlist as set back in India at
the start of the run, but as you can see from there, this is also 2 hours of pure AWESOME. It was amazing to see them do "Revelations" live, let alone "Ancient Mariner", where they held the entire crowd rapt for the entire 14+ minutes, and the requisite hits that didn't entirely mesh with the stated tour subject period were as amazing as expected. The production was top-notch as well, with well-used pyro, intricate scrims and staging, an animatronic devil for "The Number of the Beast", and two versions of Eddie walking or lunging around. This was, in short, basically everything you could hope for from an Iron Maiden classics set, delivered in an excellent fashion that was probably as good back on the back wall of the lawn as it was up in the pit, as it was where we were sitting. There were a few problems with feedback and dropouts on Bruce's mic, and Steve's bass was mixed a little strangely during "Aces High", but these were minor scratches on the surface of an impeccable show. The last time I saw them here -- in 2000 on the Brave New World Tour -- may have been better, but it may well be that the first time you see Iron Maiden is always the best, because nothing prepares you for that experience of spectacle and high musical execution when it first hits. Mark dug the hell out of it; not a bad first arena show, Iron Maiden doing a classics set like they've just knocked back a case of rejuvenation potions. There's nothing like a proper DIY gig, but there's also nothing like a really good arena show with really good music, and the fact that Kommerz basically hates anything with musical integrity just makes these all the rarer.

Somehow, we also got out and back up home without me falling asleep behind the wheel and crashing into something, and though I still feel sleep-deprived, I'm also still feeling the aftereffects of this show. Have fun at Possessed tomorrow if you're going; I've to more sleeping to do and will start thinking about the next gigs next week.

Witch Tomb with Herugrim and Die On The Steps [O'Brien's, Allston, 6/13/2008]

This show took a long and torturous route to get where it is from wherever it started, and if I recall correctly, wasn't even initially on this date, but at every step of its evolution, it was a solid bill and a sure promise of a good time, and this it definitely turned out to be.

The last lineup change was Blessed Offal dropping off, and not getting replaced, and while this was kind of a downer in that I didn't get to see them, I was able to get moving a little later and still make it down to the venue in plenty of time. There were already a few people on hand, but this show was one that filled up gradually as it went on, rather than starting off packed and dropping down as in a couple other gigs I've seen here. The bands set up (two at the same time, since Die On The Steps is kind of modular gear-wise), I drank some beer and watched some baseball and wrestling, and eventually dropped a fair bit of change on obscure music, and presently the show got underway.

Die On The Steps [5/7]
This one-man project was a late add to the bill, with even the band unsure of how exactly it'd translate live. Fortunately, the answer to that was "really well"; a guy singing over a four-track playback of mostly synth instruments is not automatically the most successful opener to a black metal show, but Die On The Steps pulled it off well. There was a fair bit of post-punk/darkwave to be heard as well as the black metal and oi elements, with the ultimate product being an interesting fusion the likes of which you really have to see at a show like this to get at all. The world needs more bands like this, though maybe playing fewer Skrewdriver covers, even if "this isn't a political project, it's a personal one". Of course, who the hell am I to talk -- I not only knew all the lyrics to "Hail The New Dawn", but sang along nearly all the way through, me and the giant Metalheads Against Racism patch on the shoulder of my featherweight kutte.

Herugrim [6/7]
The good stuff continued with Herugrim's first Mass show, and about their second or third overall, which may have set a new high-water mark for the overall quality and awesomeness of a two-song set. Rising from the ashes of several prior black metal bands and drawing inspiration from the rawly epic early works of Borknagar and Enslaved, they poured about half an hour into two songs and made it abundantly clear that this particular style isn't an exclusive preserve of European bands. Though this performance was really good, it wasn't perhaps quite their optimum setting; think about it: Cold Northern Vengeance, Herugrim, and Aura of Aquila, maybe Wolven Ancestry and/or Ancient//Master in the picture as well, up in an adirondack on some mountain in New Hampshire, big pagan bonfire a ways back, a gas generator for the PA set back in the woods to keep the noise from cutting through, towards the end of October as the frost comes in. It could happen -- probably won't, but still could.

Witch Tomb [6.5/7]
This was one of the better outings I've seen from Witch Tomb, and given how good they've been in the past, this is definitely saying something. Their black/death chaos was dead-on and graveling, the samples that they had been working in previously now seamlessly integrated with the sound. Herugrim left them a high standard to match, but they did manage to overtop it, and if the set seemed a little short at the end, it was probably either just club rules or that the audience just didn't notice the time passing for the music. I still haven't run across their split with Martyrvore, but that's no excuse for those who don't have it yet not to run down Mocking Jehovah from the band or other fine distributors of underground music.

The festivities concluded, I stumped off on the two miles back to Cambridge and the car park. Maybe I should bite the bullet and learn to park closer, but the exercise is a nice bonus, and the 40 minutes or so gives me a little leeway in when I need to safely stop drinking; otherwise, I'd just have to hang around at the pub after the show to dry out before heading home, and past experience shows that I generally stop drinking at a bar only when I leave said bar, and breaking this habit when buzzed and hanging around with a bunch of metalheads who may only have to walk home doesn't look to be an especially successful endeavor.


Next show's tonight, a fundraising gig for Autumn Above before they do their first East Coast tour, and after that, probably Metal Thursday next week. If you know me IRL, catch me at one of these gigs, I'm trying to move my brother's Iron Maiden ticket since he isn't going next Friday. More WOE TO YOU O EARTH AND SEA for the rest of us!

Autumn Above (opening for some other bands) [Midway Cafe, Boston, 6/6/2008]

This was a congested night for shows, at least originally, but then Welfare Records closed, knocking the MPD gig off the calendar. The record store is still there, but Massachusetts lost another really good venue to the bullshit intersection of antediluvian alcohol laws and immature gimboids all too willing to flaunt them. This was a well-placed venue for access with a good management team that brought in uniformly good bills and put together a positive environment for them, but now, alas, it is no more. This leaves a critical lack of venues between Boston and Manchester, and though Bernie (of Mark's Showplace infamy) has been connected with a revival of Club 125 in Haverhill (the converted Pizza Hut that I nearly saw Kreator at in 2002), I wouldn't expect a whole shitton. Bad stuff all around.

Anyway, the lack of MPD made this a choice between Composted and Autumn Above, which was originally pretty clear; Autumn Above, while awesome, has a marked tendency to play shows with annoying or boring bands, and there was a lot of awesome death metal on the O'Brien's bill. It was still a tough choice, but made easier when I found out that Autumn Above was opening up their gig: instead of having to pick a show, I could attempt the nearly impossible and try to go to both, using the MBTA to make the transition.

This plan worked perfectly to start: parked at Green Street on time, down the Red Line to the Orange Line to JP and over to the Midway to see my boys. The gig was good (see below), but I got out a little late, which turned out to be a problem. I barely missed the train out of Green Street and ended up sitting for longer than I figured on. The delays piled up, and by the time I got to my last decision point, at Kenmore, it was already nudging past midnight. I got off the train and gave up. Maybe I could have kept on and seen some of their set, though I'd already missed Moral Decay, who I really should have bitten the bullet to see in Worcester on Thursday, as well as Psytoxia and Unholy Goatfucker. Maybe I made the wrong decision and should have just gone to Allston, period, but Autumn Above are still my guys, and they put up a good enough set that it was time well spent, even if it wasn't perfectly optimal.

Back to the gig: I got down, as described, in a timely manner, and got a beer or two while waiting for the bands to start. DIY, as it turns out, is more or less the same wherever you go: late starts, lineups in flux, and the non-affiliated fans a bare handful in number. Midway, though, is still a nice DIY venue whether it's metal or alt-rock, as here: good atmosphere, decent food next door, and fairly cheap PBR. Among the fellow denizens were an old scene vet recently back in the area, chummy with the barkeep and setting up a regular gig, calling down one of his old bandmates to hang. This was a guy to mark for me, at least, because his reaction would be a good benchmark for how people will react to Autumn Above coming from really flat zero. Their fans love them, but a lot of their fans at this point are old friends, old schoolmates, and old vets of the North Shore metal scene, with a lot of overlap between those three groups. Their current mini-tour may lead to bigger tours, and out on the road they've got to be able to convert people, and opinion leaders as well as the easily impressionable.

Autumn Above were supposed to go on second, but got 'promoted' to the opening slot (not noticeably earlier) when the opening band failed to show (DIY, how we love ye). They took a while setting up due to the sound guy bringing all their mics in correctly, but start they did, and it didn't take them long to get things cranked up.

This band, especially with a set like this where they run the CD basically straight down, is a band that kind of sneaks up on you, much like tequila or a shark pretending to deliver candygrams. At first, with the mics still not completely balanced and with a lot of straight pop riffs and construction in the early songs, they're easy to miscategorize as a Plain Old Indie Band. I think after "Skydiver", that old hipster mentioned earlier said something dismissive about power chords and turned back to the bar. This was the last I saw directly of him, because the bar was filling up, and I was getting pushed ahead -- actually, make that "pushed" ahead; sure, I could have left my back on the brass rail, but the good part was just getting started.

So you think you have them figured as a pop band, and maybe you think that they have three guitars because they're all friends all in, mostly doubling and occasionally tripling parts. Maybe you think Jim's Misfits shirt is ironic, if a little odd. Then the lyrics start to get a little more twisted, and maybe you notice a little more palm-muting slicing out of the rhythm guitars -- Tone's bass definitely seems to have a little more bite to it, but this it a pop band, right, and it's not too far out of character. Things push forward, and you don't think about frogs in boiling water -- if you did, there wouldn't be cause to -- and you continue to think you have the measure of the band, which is about the same as where they were at the beginning. And then at some point -- maybe when Chris is screaming for divine retribution, maybe when the vocal styles swap rapidly in and back from five-part crooning to HXC barks, maybe when a facemelting solo leads into a Maiden/In Flames bridge (all of this on acoustics still, mind), maybe when the phrase "double homicide to suicide" comes up, maybe when the kid in the Mortician shirt mimes cutting a throat, or maybe when "Trail of Roses" winds up on a hate-filled burst of a lyric that might, depending on everyone's vocal cords, well come out as half black metal -- you get snapped back to reality and find out that the band that concludes the set is not the band that started it, and they are a lot more talented, deep, and complex than you figured, and, oh yeah, they half ripped your face off while you weren't looking. As soon as I determined that they weren't going to go on and close with "Eulogy", I looked back to the bar for that jaded scenester mentioned earlier, finding him as he leaned back and mouthed "wow" to his old guitarist; if he wasn't impressed, which he may still have been, he was definitely taken aback, and by my assessment the band will take that reaction if they can't get instant devotion. ;)

Autumn Above is still not a metal band, but from this performance, they've decidedly come to terms with their metal roots -- and metal side, in the case of those members still gigging with metal bands -- and are using that heritage to sharpen and intensify their sound. Perhaps the pop and prog elements are equally strong, but it does seem like they've reached a point where they've balanced their influences to satisfaction, and it's going to be really cool to see where they go with these strands on their future material.

Final score? 6/7; this wasn't the best gig I've seen from them, and it ended up a little short, but they fought through a number of technical difficulties -- the power cord on Ryan's amp died, and Anthony busted his A-string midway through "Burn With Me" (if I recall the song correctly) and had to do a field repair onstage -- and definitely impressed a bunch of people. If their tour shows go this well, they won't have any problem getting invited back. It would have been a better night if I'd been able to get up to O'B's, and the other bands on this bill might have been entertaining had I stuck, but even just with this much, it was a hell of a night.

Coffins with The Endless Blockade, Scapegoat, Raw Radar War, and Noosebomb [Democracy Center, Cambridge, 5/16/2008]

I left work a little later than I had anticipated; France didn't follow through on something, and I was stuck waiting around to officially conclude that it didn't happen. Nevertheless, I got moving a little after 5:15, figuring that even fi hitting doors was out of the question, I at least ought to be able to get there by the official start. Unfortunately, this also turned out to be desperately unrealistic. At 7, the scheduled start time, I had barely gotten parked, much less walked the mile up to the venue, which was located about across from the Harvard dorm that I saw my last Cambridge gig in. Fortunately and unfortunately (explained later), several of the local openers had also gotten stuck in traffic, so the show didn't get started immediately.

More to the point, the show didn't get started expediently in any kind of reasonable sense. First the organizers were waiting for Scapegoat to show, then for Noosebomb to agree to take their slot, then for said band to get set up and rolling; this took until -- if my hazy recollection is right -- about 8:30, at which point the gig was thoroughly on PRST (Punk Rock Standard Time), which would have a lot of unpleasant consequences.

Noosebomb [5/7]
Noosebomb, when they finally subbed in, though, definitely was viewed as a positive development. After in most people's cases an hour or so of standing around without music, their straightforward crunch was more than welcome, whether the listeners in question were there more for grind or for death metal. In a nutshell, those unfamiliar with the band will do fine with the description "as if Motorhead was influenced by Hellhammer, instead of the other way around"; a raw and dirty sound both black and rockish, music that picks its spot, whether to avoid getting pigeonholed as grind, punk, or black metal, or just to rock the fuck out. Good stuff, and they were one of the few bands to get a proper set time.

At this point I went back to the parlor -- this gig was in basically a house, which is apparently normally in use for leftist sociopolitical pursuits -- and hit the merch tables. I had the cash and interest to support both touring bands, and in the process provided Coffins with some free surrealism by doing my merch transaction entirely in Japanese. This was made possible not only by a lot of time watching anime set in the real world, but also by the tendency of the language to leave words out. Ordering CDs and shirts is not hard if you know "this", "that", "the one over there", and a couple colors. Regardless, it worked like intended, with about the usual transaction content that I get when buying stuff off bands in English or German, and the guys didn't really catch on until the end. Amerika ni youkosou, Coffins -- hen na yatsu ni kiyotsukerro.

Raw Radar War [5/7]
This band took the show back in a more punk direction with a solid set of Boston hardcore in the traditional style. There were a few slower, sludgy parts, but the main focus was on straightforward aggro. They also got a decent-length set, and they definitely justified the time with a good performance. As with Noosebomb, and indeed as with all the bands up through Coffins, there was not a lot of movement in the audience, whether from people saving themselves for the headliners, or just because there was a high emphasis placed on not damaging the venue unnecessarily. While hardcore and grindcore are both always better with people moving around, the band and the audience both had a good time despite the lack of turbulence.

Scapegoat [5/7]
I stepped out to get a drink from the convenience store next door -- an absolute essential at a dry show -- and came back to see Craig (Weapons Grade, the promoter) crossing off RRW as he'd previously crossed off Noosebomb; I figured that Scapegoat would get cut from the bill for not showing up, and the touring bands would be starting up next. This was not the case, as Scapegoat, having rolled up while the first two bands were going on, did get their chance to play, even if it was an extremely abbreviated set. Their straight-from-the-shoulder grindcore was served well by the time restriction, though, as they ended leaving the people who came to see them wanting more, and those of us who were down for Japanese death metal not bored or annoyed. They had a decent amount of movement, in the course of which water managed to end up on both the floor and the ceiling; how, I'm not precisely sure.

There was a considerable amount of opinion on various fora after the fact that maybe Scapegoat should have just been cut from the bill when they failed to show up ready to play by, say, 8pm, an hour after the show was supposed to start, in order to give more time to Coffins and secondarily The Endless Blockade. While they played decent music, it wasn't so good as to whelm the headliners, and as rough as it sounds, they could probably have been safely omitted without diminishing the overall fun factor of the show. Regrettable as it may be for those interested mainly in the traveling headliners, there's a clear reason that they were left on.

DIY promoters have a vested interest in making sure the bands from their own area are happy. Bands who like them will play their shows and bring out fans to make the gigs a financial success, which is not only good for the wallet, but also builds good karma to get more bigger touring acts from farther away to play on one of their promotions. While this is purely hypothetical, and not necessarily representative of his mental state, it should be noted that Craig is going to have to deal with Scapegoat and their fans and friends on a continual basis as both are based out of Boston, but Coffins won't (on average, given the past schedules of other Japanese DIY bands) be back in the US for another 5 years. Who knows if they'll still be promoting shows in 2013, or if there won't be someone else equally as capable and with just as good an in to the band? Sure, it's not an optimal situation, but these tough choices and hard realities are simply the less pleasant side of the DIY coin; larger promoters would just say "a brutal death metal band? From Japan? With no label backing to speak of and no proven draw in the package? Forget it", and then we wouldn't see Coffins at all.

The Endless Blockade [5.5/7]
Finally, we reached the touring portion; I had put down for one of this band's CDs and a cassette sight unseen eariler, and was glad to find my investment justified. They opened up with some dissonant noise stuff that was pretty cool (or at least I felt that way), then hit into more or less straight grind. It was very well-delivered, with a fresh sound separating the Canadians from the Bostonians, and while the set was cut short due to the time constraints alluded to above, it was definitely a good time. I tend not to follow grindcore because even for someone used to the bewildering maze that is current extreme metal, it is really confusing to keep straight all the time, but it's a nice change to get good grind out of a band that you have absolutely no expectations for.

Coffins [6.5/7]
And now, the band most people were waiting for, making their first appearance in North America. The set was criminally restricted in time and they took a song or two to really get cranked up properly, but in the end they delivered a thoroughly awesome performance that satisfied most of those not going to MDF, and really gave a kick to those who were already intent on doing so, in order to see them with a minimum of scheduling problems. The music was really cool, a slightly more technical take on the black-thrashing-death that you get with Abigail, or really any number of Japanese underground bands, given the extreme difficulties of setting up shows in said country. With zero opportunities for the scene to fragment, what happens is that bands get really good at fusing various threads, and Coffins certainly didn't lack in that department. The band was really hitting into their stride as they hit the 11 PM barrier, but the organizers were prevailed upon to allow one more song, a small measure of justice for the band and a relief to the crowd; those who don't see them on this tour or at MDF may never get the chance to again, and any extra minute that can be grabbed is welcome.

Following this, it was back out into the slackening rain to walk back out. Abstractly, this show sould neither have started nor finished so early, to make scheduling easier, but sometimes your weird DIY venues have weird rules, and you just have to roll with the punches. Less Coffins, more traffic, and a 11:15 curtain call is a hell of a lot better than no Coffins, or no show at all.

I came away with a large pocketful of crumpled hxc flyers, some of which look interesting, but most of which are booked against gigs with bands in my primary sphere of interest, or are taking place while I'm out in New York or something. Due to celebrating Portsmouth's FA cup win, I probably will have to give Defeated Sanity a pass (much to my chagrin), but the next show will be another MDF-warmup on Wednesday, then nothing on the weekend due to my brother's graduation.


And now, a few words about Autumn Above's non-gig last night; band practice done for friends and family at a yacht club booked because one of the members just graduated from college does not warrant a full review, but they were on point despite the circumstances ("My Name Is" Sean Cahalin playing a ride, a hi-hat, and a kids' conga instead of his full kit), and did some new material as well as stuff from various people's prior bands, and a good time was had by all, the aged relatives as well as the dudes who showed up in kuttes. No idea when they're playing a real gig next, but it'll be a good time, and you can also take your friends who aren't as into brutal music, and they'll have just as much fun.

Pelican -- opening for Thrice and Circa Survive [Worcester Palladium, 5/10/2008]

I go to a lot of weird lengths to see shows. I've flown to Germany to go to festivals, driven the 93 corridor at rush hour to see local bands in a jumped-up practice space practically in Rhode Island, braved rain, snow, and cratered roadways, parked illegally, nearly got frostbite walking around in a kutte in the dead of winter, suffered joint injuries attempting to get pits going and smoke inhalation from just standing in the wrong place, dumped, in aggregate, hundreds if not thousands on merch, and more still on camping and festivalgoing equipment that was just unusable by the end. I've put up with crummy venues, incompetent soundment, larcenous beer prices, and the occasional band flakeout; many others certainly do and give and accomodate as much and a lot more, but I am not some part-time rager who sees only their favorite bands in their most choice environments -- and as such it should carry at least a little weight when I say that this was just about the most onerous experience I've had to go through for a band -- thankfully, Pelican delivered an awesome set that made it absolutely worthwhile.

The odd form of the title should indicate that this was not a normal show; instead of headlining, as they did when I saw them at the Middle East back in July, Pelican on this round was playing support to Thrice's tour, which saw them kind of oddly fit to the bill. When I expressed back then that I'd rather see them playing a bigger venue, this was not really what I had in mind: a limited set time and an indie-rock audience. Nevertheless, I bundled myself out to Worcester for this gig, because Pelican, live, is cheap at any price, and not having heard anything from the other bands, there was at least the chance that they wouldn't be terrible.

I rolled up to the venue just before doors, and was kind of dumbfounded to see a lineup stretching nearly as far down as it had at Metalfest (on Friday). Apparently the headliners were kind of big, which would be good for Pelican in that they'll get their material into more ears -- even if it's bad for me in that I won't be able to get right up to the front, because the crowd was to all appearances overwhelmingly underage, so they'd be camping the rail instead of hanging around in the bar. This did turn out to be exactly the case, but despite the lineup I was able to get rail even after picking up a shirt and some CDs (Lair of the Minotaur and Tusk, I already own Pelican's entire catalog). What followed was a stressful 45 minutes as I stood and waited and managed to avoid killing anyone in the surrounding crowd.

Hopefully, I merely had the bad fortune to be stuck in with several of the few annoying people in the audience; if this is not the case, I foresee doom for both people who actually like the headliners and for any future efforts to ameliorate my scene xenophobia. This was far from a metal crowd, and while it was interesting to observe how normal people react to a show, I'd much rather have been standing around with fewer children and gits. In this case, though, the burden was to be bourne, thanks to the payoff coming.

Pelican [7/7]
At the gong, Pelican came out swinging; the crunch of their opener immediately suggested Mastodon, and while they amply displayed their melodic chops over the course of the set, they also hit with power throughout, delivering a dominating sound despite a few hiccups from the PA. Too often metal is criticized for lacking subtlety, but what Pelican demonstrated in this set was that there is another side to the coin: that subtlety and artistry are given contrast and shading when they can be delivered alongside and blended with pure volume and visceral punch. The set was fairly short, covering two songs each from City of Echoes and ...Fire In Our Throats..., but as expected, impeccably delivered and drawing a fairly good crowd reaction. Having seen them in this building on this kind of bill, I've seen the error of my ways: next time, it's in Boston, headlining, or nothing; in several places the downstairs of the Middle East would have literally detonated, but the crowd here did nothing, starting not even the barest hint of a pit. I should have kicked things off instead of complaining, of course, but I was without my knee brace, and it's difficult to say whether I could have accomplished anything, even with all working joints, other than getting ejected.

Following their set, I went back up top and picked up the Pink Mammoth EP -- vinyl records down front are a wasted investment -- then found a wall to lean against waiting for the next band to go on. Despite my suspicions that the rest of this bill was going to be crummy -- or at least not to my taste -- I was determined to give them a shot to prove me wrong. If Circa Survive was any good, I'd stick around, then give Thrice the same shot.

Unfortunately, no, Circa Survive were not any good. They do some good works, but their music utterly failed to make any kind of positive impression; it brought me back to the basement of the radio station, exploring random indie rock at dumb o'clock in the morning while some Anthrax or Bathory side was spinning on the air, and the same wonderment that people can listen to this stuff and actually get into it. The world is full of all kinds of people, I guess, but this hall was presently full of one less metalhead, as I hit the doors to get back home at a more reasonable hour and to burden myself with less time spent listening to music I don't like. In the end, this was a good show; I got good music from Pelican, and I got home early. Sure, it could have been better, and it sucks that I had to miss Cinco de Dudo to go to it, but I'm happy with my decision.