This post isn’t just to review 2011 for my site though, there were a lot of interesting stories in local, national and international metal this year. One of the first that comes to mind is all the venue changes that have gone on in the area. The legendary Fillmore opened up a new 2,000 capacity venue in Silver Spring and they have already held a few metal shows. A new venue opened in the inner harbor area of Baltimore as well, the Baltimore SoundStage. The State Theatre in Falls Church has been expanding its upstairs balcony to hold more people, you can see a shot of the unfinished construction here. Jaxx in Springfield, Virginia, the long time metal stronghold in the DC area, has new owners taking over in 2012. They also recently purchased Alley Katz in Richmond, and have renamed that venue Kingdom after a renovation. They have remained quiet so far on their plans for Jaxx but you can expect to see some changes there in 2012. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you up to date on that. There were a couple closings as well, Bourbon Street in Baltimore closed, though the staff seems to have mostly moved to the new Baltimore SoundStage. In what is probably the most tragic venue closing of 2011, the Corpse Fortress in Silver Spring, Maryland was shut down after five years and the residents of this awesome DIY house were all evicted at the end of September. I saw a lot of great bands play there, touring and local, and it really is a blow to the local do it yourself music scene, metal or otherwise. So Addictive Lounge, which had been having weekly metal nights on Mondays in Herndon decided to turn into a full fledged gay bar seven days a week and so they no longer hold local metal shows. However there are a few venues that have started hosting metal shows as well. The DIY house Cellar Door in Annandale has been getting bands occasionally. There is also the unlikely venue Asefu’s, an Ethiopian bar in the U Street area of DC, which has been hosting some local metal shows lately. The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring has also held some matinee metal shows on the weekends. Old Firestation #3 in Fairfax City has been hosting a few metal shows as well. Golden West Cafe has also been getting some great doom and sludge bands coming through Baltimore. Of course this year we had that whole fiasco with Sonar in Baltimore ‘shutting down’ about three weeks before Maryland Deathfest was to be held there. Luckily it turned out to be just a big, and very public, management tantrum. The venue reopened in time for MDF but they sure looked bad. That wasn’t the only story involving Maryland Deathfest in 2011, which isn’t surprising considering the festival has become not only this area’s but also North America’s biggest non-touring metal festival. The Neurosis outdoor performance this year right after a thunderstorm that almost canceled their set was just incredible. And the mysterious Swedish band Ghost played their first ever US show as the final band on the final day of Maryland Deathfest this year. Sadly there was a bad situation that ended up with security guards spraying random people in attendance with pepper spray after their set which made the otherwise awesome festival end on a sour note. There were also issues with the video footage that had been shot at Maryland Deathfest, much of which is explained here, and apparently there will not be a Maryland Deathfest The Movie for the 2011 festival. However, there is a movie coming out that some of you old school metal heads in this area might find interesting. No, not a sequel to Heavy Metal Parking Lot, that already came out this year as Heavy Metal Picnic. The now defunct DC concert venue The Bayou has a documentary film about its history coming out soon and you can see the trailer for it here.

There were a lot of interesting stories in metal this year, from the hilarious to the bizarre to the downright tragic. We saw the big four of thrash metal hold their US shows, the closest one to us being the performance at Yankee Stadium in New York City that was so awesome that a guy in a wheelchair was crowd surfing. And way back in January of this year Jef Whitehead, aka Wrest, the man behind the one man US black metal bands Leviathan and Lurker Of Chalice, was arrested for criminal sexual assault and aggravated domestic battery for allegedly attacking his girlfriend, including sexually assaulting her with a tattoo gun (details here). He has denied all the charges and even put out a new Leviathan album that seems pretty obviously to be directing anger at her with the title True Traitor, True Whore. In January we also heard that Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman became infected with a flesh eating bacteria, necrotizing fasciitis. He had to sit out most of Slayer’s shows this year because of it, including their big four shows. He seems to be making a full recovery though, because, as he put it, “Satan had my back.” In July the lead singer for Life Of Agony, Keith Caputo, announced that he was transitioning into life as a woman and should be referred to as Mina Caputo now. It takes a lot of strength to come out in the metal world, and while I’m not a fan of Life Of Agony’s music this did lead to another one of my favorite quotes in any interview this year when Mina stated, “just because I’m wearing a skirt doesn’t mean I don’t got big balls.” And who can forget the bizarre story of the bass player for Coheed And Cambria getting arrested for armed robbery after holding up a pharmacy in Boston just before the band performed there live (check it out here if you want the details). There were also two big stories this year about how people find and share music, including metal. Namely Spotify coming to the US and Google Music starting up, the latter of which has made it so any band, regardless of if they have a label or not, can get their music in the Android Marketplace for a one time fee of just $25 (info on that is here). There was also the story this year of the big Chaos In Tejas fest announcing their 2012 line up and afterwards people started noticing there were some bands with nazi or other racist ties on the bill, namely Nyogthaeblisz, Black Witchery and Disma (get more details on this here). This led to an uproar on the festival’s Facebook page and several other bands set to play the fest started threatening to pull out if those bands weren’t dropped from the festival. All three are now off of the fest, however it should be noted that both Black Witchery and Disma are on the lineup for Maryland Deathfest in 2012 and nobody seems to be saying a thing about that. In what has sadly becoming surprising, Metallica actually did something cool when they held four 30th anniversary concerts in San Francisco. They played some brand new tracks for fans as well as bring in a slew of guests to perform with them, including people like Glenn Danzig, King Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne and even Dave Mustaine, among others. It’s cool they did something for the fans for once. In 2010 it was announced that Nergal, the main man from the Polish blackened death metal band Behemoth, had been diagnosed with leukemia. He raised a lot of awareness for the need for bone marrow transplants, and in January 2011 he was released from the hospital after being the successful recipient of one. In October 2011 Behemoth even did a small tour in Poland, the band’s first live shows since Nergal was hospitalized.

Sadly not everyone in the metal world fared as well this year and some people were lost to us. Cory Smoot, the most recent person under the Flattus Maximius costume as a member of the gory shock metal band Gwar, had heart problems and passed away at the age of 34 while on tour with the band in early November. This story touched a lot of people in this area since Gwar are Richmond, Virginia natives and also because he left behind a pregnant wife. A benefit show is being held for them on January 7th in Richmond, info on that is here. There was also Seth Putnam, the main guy behind the always overly offensive grindcore band Anal Cunt, who died in June at the age of 43 due to heart failure. In March Mike Starr, the original Alice in Chains bassist, was found dead in his home at age 44, apparently due to a lethal combination of Xanax and alcohol. He had been on VH-1′s show Celebrity Rehab in 2010. There was also the death of Phil Vane, one of the original members of the English band Extreme Noise Terror. He died from a stroke at the age of 44 after being one of the founding members of not only ENT but of the entire crust sub genre. Just last week David Gold was killed in a car accident at age 31. He was the main guy behind the Canadian black/doom band Woods Of Ypres. I’m sure there are others I have forgotten to mention so feel free to make note of them in the comment section below if you’d like.

There were also some long running bands who broke up this past year as well. There was the above mentioned Anal Cunt and Woods Of Ypres of course. Also God Dethroned from the Netherlands decided to finish the band after 20 years, well they still have to play on the 70,000 Tons Of Metal cruise in January but that will be it for them. The Bay Area band Ludicra broke up just as they seemed to really be gathering steam which reminds me of Salome‘s demise last year. Long time Swedish death metal act Dismember broke up after 23 years in the scene. Back in May at Maryland Deathfest we got to see the New York based death metal band Skinless play their final live set ever after having been together since 1992. There were also some major line up changes in a few bands that didn’t break up, at least not yet. I think the biggest has to be K. K. Downing, guitar player and founding member of Judas Priest, leaving the band in April after over 40 years with the band. Also in April the Seattle based Nevermore announced that their guitar player, Jeff Loomis, was leaving the band as well as long time drummer Van Williams. Both had been in the band since the band’s first album and Nevermore is currently on hiatus though vocalist Warrel Dane insists they are not broken up. The Tampa, Florida based power metal band Iced Earth saw their lead singer, Matt Barlow, leave the band for a second time in March. However Iced Earth didn’t miss a beat and quickly recruited Into Eternity vocalist Stu Block into the band. Swedish black metal band Dark Funeral saw long time members B-Force, Dominator and Emperor Magus Caligula all leave the band in 2010 but it wasn’t until 2011 that the band started filling these gaps. Dominator decided to return on drums, Zornheym replaced B-Force on bass, and after 15 years with Magus on vocals the band has found a new vocalist in Nachtgarm from the band Negator.

This year there were a few bands who got back together as well. Those who attended the final day of this year’s Maryland Deathfest got to see Coroner play a headlining set. This was the Swiss technical thrash band’s first US show since reforming in 2010 after a 14 year break up period. After the fallout of the aforementioned Nevermore, Sanctuary has been reformed by the remaining members of Nevermore. There was also the two song performance by Swedish death metal band Bloodbath as an encore at the Opeth and Katatonia show in Baltimore back in early November. The so called super group only played at one show on that tour, and we were lucky that it was the one in Baltimore! Not really a reunion but his return to metal in general, we got a solo album by Demonaz who has pretty much been absent from the metal world in any major role since he left Immortal in 1997 due to tendinitis so bad that it prevented him from playing guitar. Another sort of return this year was ICS Vortex putting out a solo album as well after having been booted unceremoniously from Dimmu Borgir in 2009. Lets just say that album was a lot better than the last Dimmu album, though that’s not saying much. Also this year there was the return of Kyuss, who played both the 9:30 Club in Washington DC and Rams Head Live in Baltimore. The band has all the original members back, except for the glaring lack of Josh Homme on guitar. It’s not too surprising as I’m sure he is making much more money with the Eagles Of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures and Queens Of The Stone Age, though it’s a bit of a let down for the fans. There has also been news that Pepper Keenan has rejoined Corrosion Of Conformity, so I hope to hear him on a new album with them in 2012. This year we also saw the return of Polish death metal band Decapitated, sort of. In October 2007 they were in a horrible bus wreck while on tour which killed their drummer and put the vocalist into a coma. The band broke up but guitarist Vogg recruited all new members to reform Decapitated and this year they put out a new full length as well as went on tour, including a stop at Jaxx in October. Some musical returns are hardly worth noting but are too big of a flop to not mention, such as the first album by death metal legends Morbid Angel in 8 years, also their first album with David Vincent in the band since 1995. It was not what anyone expected, and not in a good way. I mean there are bad albums and then there are albums that make you just wonder who the hell heard this crap and thought it was worth putting out? I’m still not convinced it was the worst metal album of the year though. I mean, Lou Reed with Metallica‘s album Lulu is pretty damn awful as well, but I guess you sort of expected that before you heard it. Let’s just hope 2012 has nothing close to these two stinkers in store for the metal fans out there.

There were some good metal releases this year of course. I don’t write “top 10″ album lists or whatever because I don’t really like ranking music (or art in general) as though it is a competition. However, I’d like to just note that we had new material by a lot of bands from this area (this isn’t a complete list but I tried to remember everyone!). DC’s doom legends Pentagram put out Last Rites, an album surprisingly good considering how long this band has been around. There was The Human Romance, a new album by DC’s biggest metalcore band Darkest Hour. Deceased put out Surreal Overdose in 2011 to show that they’re still going strong for over 25 years. Dying Fetus put out an EP of mostly 90′s death metal band covers called History Repeats this year. Maryland’s most famous djent band, Periphery, also put out the Icarus EP this year to tide fans over until they release two full length albums in 2012 (more on that below). If you really like them I recommend checking out the instrumental Baltimore based band Balor’s Eye who put out their debut as a self titled EP this year. Aurora Borealis put out surprisingly good melodic black metal effort this year, even though it seems to have gone mostly overlooked for some reason. They’re even giving it away as a free download (here), what the hell else do you want people? On the more grindy side of things Drugs Of Faith put out a really good album, Corroded. Local death/doom band Ilsa put out a split with Sweden’s Hooded Menace this year as well, totally crushing. Local stoner act Borracho released their debut full length this year as well, titled Splitting Sky. And Polkadot Cadaver, made up of members of the broken up band Dog Fashion Disco, put out their second album this year and have started touring nationally to support it. Baltimore band Bet The Devil put out their self titled debut as well in 2011. Death metal band Visceral Disgorge put out their debut album, Ingesting Putridity, in 2011. And last but not least there was the progressive band Iris Divine who put out a full length album this year. So if people think this area’s metal scene is dead or simply doesn’t exist they’re just not paying attention because that’s a hell of a lot of metal output there!

Well that’s my recap of what happened in 2011, and as if this post wasn’t long enough already, I’ll tell you some of the things you can look forward to in 2012. As far as this site itself goes, I’ve got some awesome new contests coming up where I’ll be giving away tickets to see Graveyard, Ghost, King Giant and Lamb Of God, and those are just in January! I’ll also be doing some interviews with some people I hope you guys find interesting. I’m going to try to keep this different than the typical ass-kissing promo interviews on every other music website but actually ask some questions people want to know the answers to. I also plan on revamping my venues page with even more info on each venue, and possibly even adding a section with contact info for various small venue promoters so you can get in contact with them to set up shows much more easily.

As egotistical as I’d like to be, there’s plenty more to be excited about in the world of metal in 2012 besides what is going on with my site. I think the biggest story of all has got to be that all four original members of Black Sabbath have reunited and announced not only a full world tour, but a new full length album as well. Rick Rubin is producing it, and while he has an extensive history of producing all kinds of music, he was behind the board for Slayer’s classic Reign In Blood album though more recently he has produced Metallica’s 2008 album Death Magnetic. It certainly has the potential to be a horrid album or a great one, and I’m sure no matter what there will be people who claim either side, but it’s still pretty amazing that they’re putting a new album together now after over 30 years. Another big story is that grind legends Terrorizer will be putting out a new album. However David Vincent has been added to the band’s line up and I really hope he doesn’t make them sound like modern Morbid Angel. Local grind act Pig Destroyer has been rather quiet since their 2007 album Phantom Limb, but I’ve heard that Misery Index drummer Adam Jarvis has been added to the line up so hopefully we’ll finally hear some new material from them in 2012. Locals King Giant have their sophomore album, Dismal Hollow, coming out in January and they’ll be holding a CD release show at Jaxx on the 21st for that. The line up for that show is great and I’m glad they’re going to be holding another contest on DCHeavyMetal.com to help promote it. Djent band Periphery has announced that they’ll be putting out not one but two full length albums in 2012. The first is a concept album titled Juggernaut that is tentatively scheduled for release in May. Not much info has been told about the second album, however it has been announced that is it not a concept album and is scheduled for release in November. Baltimore’s Knives Out have an album scheduled for release in February titled Black Mass Hysteria. Local power metal act A Sound Of Thunder is supposed to put out a full length this year, titled Out Of The Darkness, a follow up to their 2011 album Metal Renaissance, so keep an eye out for that. In what seems to be a bit strange, the band Control Denied, formed by Chuck Schuldiner of Death fame and broken up after his death in 2001, will have a second album released in 2012. It is to be titled When Man And Machine Collide. Apparently it is the album Chuck had been working on when he died so I’m not sure who ‘finished’ it and it sort of stinks of the kind of cash grab that is usually reserved for Elvis and 90s rap fans. Oh and remember how I mentioned above that I hoped there wouldn’t be an album as bad as either the latest Morbid Angel or Metallica efforts? Well, Morbid Angel has decided to put out a double album of dub step remixes of their 2010 album, Illud Divinum Insanus. Seriously, after all the backlash they got they thought THAT would be a good idea? There’s a couple tours coming in 2012 I’m already excited for. Lock Up, featuring members of bands At The Gates, Napalm Death, Dimmu Borgir and too many more to list, was supposed to make their US debut at Maryland Deathfest in 2011. They had last minute visa issues and so didn’t make it into the US. However they now have a full US tour scheduled and they’ll be playing in Baltimore in February. I’m also excited to see Hail!Hornet and Zoroaster play at the Black Cat in February the same night as a screening of a movie about heavy metal in the south, aptly titled Slow Southern Steel.

Well, thanks for getting to the end of the post, it’s been a damn long one and it took me what seems like forever to pull all these links together. 2011 has been a hell of a year and 2012 looks promising already. If you’ve got any suggestions for the site or you noticed something I totally overlooked that should have been mentioned above go ahead and mention it in the comment section below. Stay safe everyone and remember if you’re out partying this New Year’s Eve, the entire DC area (including the Maryland and Virginia suburbs) has free cabs from 10pm to 6am. Just call 1-800-200-TAXI or check out the Sober Ride program’s website here. Stay metal everyone, go out and see some metal shows and support the scene you’re a part of!

The show started with the one of the guys from New Belgium Brewing taking the mic on stage and introducing the band as well as presenting them with the bottle that had serial number 10001110101. That’s the name of one of the songs on Clutch’s 2005 album Robot Hive/Exodus. The guys then went into their setlist, starting off with and “acoustic” version of The Regulator. While guitarist Tim Sult played an acoustic guitar, they were all using pick ups, pedals and amps, so don’t think this performance was something like those old MTV Unplugged specials. What made the show cool was that the Red Palace only holds about 200 people, and Clutch is a band that usually plays much larger venues, they had just played at the HFStival the day before at Merriweather Post Pavilion. However this night the band played their five song set and pleased the crowd by having Tim plug in his regular guitar before playing a new song, apparently titled Newt. They played a few more songs, sort of a best hits style thing with songs covering their back catalog and ending with Elephant Riders. In all they played for about an hour and it was a fun show and a great chance to catch Clutch up close.

When Clutch had finished I didn’t linger around for too long since I had another show to catch at the Velvet Lounge. I made a stop at the 9:30 Club‘s basement bar for a quick bite to eat just before they closed their kitchen. Apparently they had some Mexican band playing upstairs named Molotov, but luckily the 9:30 Club has a separate door on the side of the building you can enter the bar at if you don’t want watch the show. The bartender down there was wearing a Clutch shirt and he said he was pissed he had to work that night because he had wanted to see the show at the Red Palace. Anyways, I had a nice panini and an organic oatmeal stout and then I walked around the corner to the Velvet Lounge.

The Velvet Lounge had a pretty sweet line up this evening. They haven’t been getting a lot of metal shows of note lately but this one definitely stood out on their calendar. The headliner was the New Orleans based sludge band Suplecs and they were touring with the Columbus, Ohio band Lo-Pan. Shows at the Velvet Lounge tend to run late but even so I missed the first band on the bill, Weed Is Weed from Maryland. The band has two former Spirit Caravan members in its ranks, Dave Sherman and Gary Isom. I hope to catch them another time. The first band I saw play at the Velvet Lounge that evening was Lo-Pan. I’ve never seen a band’s lead singer stand all the way to the back of the stage before. I mean way back, he was even behind the drummer. Despite their strange stage positions, they were pretty good live. They made for a good opener act on this kind of tour. They wrote their set list on pages torn out of some porno magazine, certainly the most graphic set list stationary of the night.

After Lo-Pan finished their set local act Nitroseed performed. Typically an instrumental band, they played several of their songs with lyrics at this show. I’d never seen them live before but I was very impressed, certainly worth checking out if you see them listed as an opener at an upcoming show. Also, it turns out their drummer, Phil Adler, also plays in the local doom band Wooly Mammoth. Their music had some good energy and they kept the momentum rolling forward throughout their set. They finished up and the last band of the night was next, Suplecs.

Suplecs is from New Orleans and they mentioned many times between songs that they were excited to be playing in front of a DC audience as they were big fans of the DC doom metal scene. The band was good live, they had some high energy parts but also slowed it down for a few songs. Their songs really had a dynamic range to them that many sludge bands simply don’t have. This kept the show interesting and fresh throughout their set, which is a really good thing after watching three bands with a similar sound earlier in the evening. They mentioned that this was the first time they played their song Pissing In The Wind on the East Coast. They closed their set with a cover. After all their praise for DC’s metal scene I thought for sure they’d play a Pentagram or Spirit Caravan song, or something similar at least. Nope, they played Working Man by Rush. Totally out of left field if you ask me. It was ok but really didn’t seem to fit into their set that well. Regardless, I will definitely go see them again if they come through the area another time, and you should too!

If you’d like to see more images from the bands I saw that night you can see them on my Flickr page here. And be sure to check out all the videos below of Clutch, Nitroseed and Suplecs. The first four are Clutch. The first one is acoustic and the second is their new song. The last two videos are of Suplecs, the last of which is their Rush cover. Thanks to the guys in King Giant for the beers and thanks to you for reading all of this. Stay metal everyone!

Clutch acoustic:

Clutch’s new song:

Clutch with extended drum solo:

Clutch with guitar solo:

Nitroseed:

Suplecs:

Suplecs covering Rush:

Speaking of which, the metal scene here has also had a great year! The first Blood & Fire Fest really kicked off a wave interest in local metal acts in the area. Many venues are holding regular metal nights, the State Theatre in Falls Church, Balls Bluff Tavern in Leesburg, So Addictive Lounge in Herndon, the Ottobar in Baltimore, and we’re also starting to see more and more metal shows at venues that never really had them before. The Velvet Lounge has been hosting more metal gigs, often of local acts. Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Vital Remains and Devourment played the Rock & Roll Hotel for what was by far that venue’s heaviest concert ever. Bourbon Street in Baltimore has been booking a lot more metal acts, and I saw Slayer and Megadeth at the 1st Mariner Arena, their most metal show in a long time. Hell, even Ozzy showed up on the National Mall for the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. There’s also been a few local acts that are really starting to get noticed outside of the area, Salome and Periphery both had very good years by putting out great releases that have really gotten them widespread attention. Also, Ilsa was recommended by Fenriz of Darkthrone on his metal blog (here) this year too. All these things show that metal is on the upswing in general and in the DC area in particular. Sadly, it wasn’t ALL great news though. The very talented local doom band Ol’ Scratch broke up, which sucks. There was that rather ridiculous incident at Maryland Deathfest where the bass player for D.R.I. got on stage during Watain‘s set and was swiftly taken down by the members of the band, mid-song. And for some reason when local grindcore act Magrudergrind had a free album put out that was sponsored by Scion, everyone called them corporate sell outs and they seemed to get a lot of heat for that. Not really sure why people are complaining about getting something for free, who gives a shit if a car company put their logo on it, it doesn’t change the music. There was also the incident at DC9 after an Agnostic Front concert this autumn that left someone dead, allegedly at the hands of DC9 staff. I’m not sure what happened there at all, the police seemed to have announced information to the press before it was even verified, and that seemed to put the Ethiopian community into a frenzy. I just hope the best for the club and the family of the victim. Lets hope nothing like that happens in DC again in 2011. On a more positive note, we did see the merging of the two venues The Red & The Black with The Palace Of Wonders to create the new Red Palace. This new space has really opened up and is a great place to see a show, hopefully they’ll book more metal gigs too.

In the overall, non-local metal scene, there were a lot of great albums, too many for me to even attempt to get into all of that here. And I don’t do those year end best of lists because they’re arbitrary and you can make up your own mind about what albums kicked ass this year. However, there were some interesting stories in the world of metal in 2010. I think the biggest story was that the big four of thrash, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, shared the stage together for the first time. Unfortunately, these concerts were all at festivals in Europe. It would be cool if they toured the US together, though Slayer Megadeth and Anthrax already did in 2010. There were several bands who released their first album in a long time this year, some being better than others. Fear Factory released their first album in 5 years, Mechanize, after an awkward break up period. The Crown got back together and put out their first album in 7 years, Doomsday King. October Tide put out A Thin Shell, their first album in 11 years. Atheist, who has been reunited and touring for a couple years now finally put out their first album in 17 years titled Jupiter. And of course there was the Autopsy reunion at Maryland Deathfest in May. This lead to their first release in 15 years, an EP titled The Tomb Within. It’s pretty awesome and has everyone excited about the full length that is supposed to be coming out in 2011. We also saw Decapitated tour the US again this past year, the first time since their awful bus wreck in 2007, though the band has only one of the members from before the accident left. There were two albums put out by so called black metal super groups this year, The Underworld Regime by Ov Hell as well as the excellent Monument To End Time by Twilight. There were several bands who called it quits this year, I think most notably Isis, Abscess and Xasthur. There are probably more that I’m not thinking of though. Unfortunately there were some deaths in the metal family this year, I believe the most notable were that of Ronnie James Dio and Peter Steele. There was also the story about Nergal of Behemoth‘s fight with leukemia and his successful attempt at finding a bone marrow donor match (more info here). It was pretty amazing to see how much he spread awareness of the need for bone marrow donors with his situation. If you told me a year ago that metal’s most heartwarming story of 2010 would involve Nergal I’d have called you an idiot, but here we are. I hope he has a swift and full recovery. There was also some overly dramatic bullshit that played out in the metal press, I think the biggest story in that category this year has to go to Mike Portnoy quitting Dream Theater to play drums in the unlikely choice of a band Avenged Sevenfold (later to be booted from A7X, ask for his DT job back and be turned down, more info here).

Looking ahead to 2011, I don’t know what the biggest stories will be, the best albums and tours, but I do know the biggest metal event in the area, hell all of North America, will be Maryland Deathfest IX in Baltimore in May. This year it expands to four days! Some of the highlights for that will be sets by Neurosis and Exhumed as well as the reunion of Coroner and rare appearances by various metal bands from around the world and from almost every metal sub-genre. There’s also Immortal coming to Sonar in February, their first area appearance in many years. The Black Cat will be hosting two metal shows in January, headlined by Jucifer and Kylesa. Pretty cool for a venue known for indie, punk and alternative music. The State Theatre in Falls Church will be hosting it’s first ever metal concert that’s not part of the regularly occurring Mandatory Metal series. That show will be King Giant headlining with Death Penalty and Throwdown Syndicate opening. The Flight Of The Valkyries Festival will be in Baltimore again some time in the fall and there should be the 2nd annual Blood & Fire Festival at some point this year too. Local doom legends Pentagram just signed with Metal Blade records and considering they were playing some new tunes the last time I saw them, they’ll probably have a new album out in 2011. So there are already a lot of things to look forward to in 2011 if you’re a metal head in the DC area.

Now I’d like to thank a few of the people who have helped me out and been especially supportive to me this year. Marie and Dave and Jaxx Nightclub, Alan Margazano and the State Theatre, Leila Regan-Porter of Ticket Alternative, TI and the guys in King Giant, Steve Miller of Loculus, all the guys in Apothys, Leah Potok at the 9:30 Club, Lars from Inverted Umlaut, and especially my mom, who not only helped me out with the new camera but has been really supportive of the site from the beginning. Check out her cool photography and Photoshop blog (here) if you’re into that stuff. And most of all thanks to all the readers of this site, the bands who have played shows and/or helped me spread the word, anyone who has bought a shirt or asked for a sticker or told a friend about DCHeavyMetal.com or bought me a beer at a gig. It’s you guys that have helped this site and this metal scene grow and that’s great because it’s you who the site is for. I probably forgot some people so don’t get pissy with me if you weren’t mentioned. This post took forever to put all these links in, so I hope you click a few you find interesting. I added a few of my favorite pictures (not used in previous posts) and videos from 2010 for your viewing pleasure. I’m hoping that 2011 will be an even better year for the blog and heavy metal in the greater Washington DC and Baltimore area as well, and I have a good feeling that it will.

Ozzy live from the 10th row! I always love seeing Ozzy.

First Autopsy gig in 15 years!

I shot the first footage of this brand new song by DK, first new song since 1986!

Entombed singer rips up a bible on stage in this one.

Incantation covering Black Sabbath in tribute to RJD

This was the first time Fear Factory ever played this song live

Division shredding out a killer Metallica classic at the State Theatre

Final song of the tour, the bands got crazy on this one

Apothys at Blood And Fire Festival, killer!

First US concert ever for Melechesh, I waited years to see them live!

I got there a couple minutes after 7:30 and the opening band, Dysrhythmia was already playing their first song. They were great when I saw them play at the Velvet Lounge in February 2009 so I knew I wanted to get to the Rock & Roll Hotel in time to catch their set. If you’ve never heard them before, they’re an instrumental three piece from New York City that just shreds live. The bass player, Colin Marston is a member of the band Krallice and he also plays in the current version of Gorguts with Dysrhythmia’s guitarist, Kevin Hufnagel. Dysrhythmia’s songs twist and turn all over the place and rarely do they come back to playing the same riff again, instead their songs are constantly moving forward and evolving. That combined with the fast tempos that makes the music just really fun to listen to live. There are no words and really none are necessary as the music is totally engaging on it’s own. Really my biggest complaint with their set was the short length, but they were the first of three bands so it wasn’t really that surprising. They were a great way to start off this concert though.

Next up was Intronaut. They’re a band from LA that I’m not as familiar with as the other two bands. I’ve heard their 2008 album Prehistorisms and while I do enjoy it, I wouldn’t call it life changing progressive metal. They have a new album coming out soon and they played a couple songs from that live. They aren’t bad live and their rhythm section really kept the songs moving with groovy beats you don’t always get so much of in this metal sub genre. I was certainly impressed by their drummer, Danny Walker, in the live setting too, he really killed it back there. While their music is pretty interesting, they were pretty laid back on stage. Towards the end of their set the lead singer/guitarist, Sacha Dunable, asked the audience if anyone had any weed or whiskey before the Cynic set started. At the end of the song someone had brought shots to the stage for them, haha. Their final song of the night, Any Port, saw the other guitarist, Dave Timnick, put down his guitar at the beginning of the song to pick up a couple of mallets and pound on some upright (conga?) drums. He slung his guitar back on and continued to play the bulk of the song until he joined in at the end for the song’s drum solo. The rest of the band walked off the stage while he and Danny put on a rhythmic drum show that sort of reminded me of that old Sepultura song Kiowas, tho not so tribal sounding. It was a cool way to close out a good set, and I’m definitely going to check out their new album when it comes out. They certainly had left the audience warmed up and ready for the main act who was due up next, Cynic.

When I came from the downstairs bar to watch Cynic the stage looked different. They had their backdrop lit up and they put up a couple of circle shaped screens. They started projecting trippy videos onto these and they turned on some funky lights. One could have mistaken it for a Pink Floyd cover band setting up, but this was much better than that. I’d never seen Cynic before, but everyone has told me they’re good live. They weren’t kidding, what followed was a fantastic set. Definitely one the best concerts I’ve seen in a long time, maybe the best show I’ve seen this year in fact. Cynic formed in Florida in the late 80s during the time the state’s legendary death metal scene was forming. Due to delays caused by two of the members touring with Death and then hurricane Andrew destroying their practice space as well as most of the state, the band only ever released one full length album, the classic Focus, before breaking up in 1994. One of the draws of this tour is that Cynic would be playing that album in its entirety. Since reforming they’ve put out another full length album and an EP, both of which I also highly recommend. For a band that started over 20 years ago they have a very small catalog of songs, which in their case I think worked as an advantage here. Since they have so many really good songs on those releases, the audience was treated to hearing most of Cynic’s songs live, instead of the standard “pick a song or two from each album” approach most older bands must do for their live shows. They started the show off with Veil Of Maya and continued through the excellent Focus album in almost top form. Guitarist Tymon Kruidenier apologized that he had lost his voice earlier that day so was having trouble keeping up with some of the growling. Luckily it’s heavy metal and the vocals are generally not the most important aspect of the music, certainly not in Cynic’s case. On top of that all the clean vocals (sung through a vocoder) were done by Paul Masvidal. Otherwise, the band was spot on. They obviously had played these songs enough to have completely mastered them for the live setting, guitars, bass and drums. Added with the cool light effects, this show was just mesmerizing. After playing Focus straight through, the rest of the band left the stage as Paul pulled out a nylon string acoustic guitar and played the song Integral off their latest EP, Re-Traced. This was a nice little interlude for the fans and a good divider for the rest of the show. When the band returned they played a nice mix of their newer material, and they even threw into the setlist the song Cosmos, which was un-released until it became a bonus track on the 2004 reissue of Focus. You couldn’t have asked for a better setlist for this show, and if you had a favorite song you were hoping they would play, they probably did. At one point Paul had everyone in the audience do a yoga stretch. A bit new age but I’ve got to admit that’s something I never thought I’d see at a metal show, everyone doing yoga. Overall Cynic put on a dazzling display of technical progressive heavy metal and showed that not only are they one of the genre’s older influential bands, but they’re also one of the current leading bands of the genre, even if they took off a dozen years.

I really had a great time at this show. I talked with a fan of this blog, Josh, for a bit between sets which is always cool. It always surprises me when people come up to me and recognize me from the site, I’m glad some of you seem to be enjoying it. I also pulled a promo poster off the wall that I got all of the guys in Cynic to sign for me after the show. I’m not usually a big fan of autographs but I wanted something to remember the show by that was a bit more distinct than a t-shirt (I did buy the sticker pack too). This show was just what I needed, after a few let downs (the cancellation of the Enthroned concert last week as well as the mediocre Iron Maiden show last month) this show really hit the spot. All three bands were excellent and I’m glad I got to be there. Now on to the videos. They’re a bit dark but the sound is decent in them. The first is Dysrhythmia, the next two are Intronaut and the rest are Cynic, enjoy.

I got off of work and headed straight to the venue, but since I work late the Melvins were starting their set when I walked in. That means I totally missed the Totimoshi band, but I don’t really know who they are anyways so I wasn’t that upset. Plus everyone I talked to said they had a shitty mix and that the venue didn’t really do them justice because of it. Anyways, the Melvins came on and played a long set. This was their first DC show since October 2007 at the Black Cat, though they’ve played Baltimore a few times more recently. I’d never seen the Melvins live before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it was an interesting show. They had two drummers on stage, which I’m not sure if that was really necessary or just more of a gimmick. They didn’t do anything that was too crazy that it really needed two drummers, though they did some cool little seamless switch offs where they’d both suddenly switch and start playing the other drummer’s part and if you weren’t watching them you probably wouldn’t even notice. There were some parts that were very percussion heavy that sorta reminded me of that old Sepultura song Kaiowas. Their songs went through a variety of paces, from very slow to more rocking mid tempo stuff. There were some moments of dissonance and the distortion on the guitars added a rough, unpolished feel to the mix. They of course had some strange and even abrupt time changes, and a few tricks for the audience, like suddenly switching to a strange Caribbean sounding beat to throw off the people in the mosh pit. Buzz Osbourne was waving his famous mop of hair around, and Jared Warren was wearing some goofy fake armor outfit with a sparkling cape. Sort of looked like a kid who dressed himself up in some sort of half assed gladiator costume or something. It was a fun set to watch but seemed to drag on after a bit. I noticed they played longer than was expected, though I think this was because they were originally intended to be the headliners on this tour, before Isis made their aforementioned announcement that this was their final set of shows.

When the lights came on after their set I could see the place wasn’t totally full, which is nice. The last few shows I’ve been to at the 9:30 Club have been sell outs and that is not really fun seeing a band like that. It’s hard to find a good view in those situations and if you do get a good spot you better not want to smoke, drink or go to the restroom at any point cause it’ll be gone in seconds. The 9:30 Club isn’t really a venue I enjoy too much in general, but I do find myself there fairly often to see bands with larger followings than most of what I enjoy. Their beer is very overpriced so I don’t even bother drinking there any more, and they are totally nazis about camera policies, which change from concert to concert. It is nice that they have 3 levels to view the show from, helps to find a spot with a decent view. I think I’ll be back again in early August to catch Boris and Russian Circles. You can find more info on that on my upcoming concerts page. Anyways, after talking to some friends during the set up for Isis, the lights dimmed and the headliner was on.

Isis came out and didn’t say a word. Atfter a short intro, they just started into their first song, I think it was Threshold Of Transformation. I shot a few pics during this song, but they must have said something to the lighting guy after that song, because it was DARK in there for the rest of the set. This resulted in me not getting any great pics since flash photography had been banned by “artist request”. Of course nobody said anything to the guys in the Melvins who I saw shooting pics with their flashes on during Isis’ set from the backstage balcony. The video I shot of Holy Tears at the concert (see below) is pretty damn dark too. Not the end of the world, as I had to really hide that I was shooting a video since they’re always hard core about that there so it’s not centered that well on the band anyways. The audio is decent in it though. Isis didn’t really address the audience at all, I suppose just letting their music do the talking. They did say a few words before the final song of the regular set (aka before the encore) and dedicated a song to the Melvins as well as thanking the opening act. They were a lot of fun to watch, though I’ve got to say the second half of their show was the most exciting to me. They seemed to really be on and you could see the crowd was reacting more too. Well, half the audience at least. Looking down at the people on the floor you could see that those standing on the right side of the stage were having a blast, moshing, clapping their hands over their heads and even occasionally crowd surfing. The people to the left of the stage down there seemed like the typical DC zombie audience stereotype. It was really weird seeing such a division of the audience like this, right down the middle. At some points in the set, keyboard player Bryant Clifford Meyer played a 3rd guitar, which wasn’t something I expected. After playing So Did We, Isis left the stage briefly for the pre-planned encore that I always find so tacky, but the songs they came back to play were a lot of fun to watch. They seemed to have more intensity and energy, even in the slower parts, than the rest of the show. By the end of the final song, The Beginning And The End, the bass player, Jeff Caxide, was laying on the floor and singer/guitarist, Aaron Turner, was playing on his knees. They got up and Aaron said goodbye into the microphone and they all left the stage for the final time of the night. The crowd seemed pretty thin by the end of their set, maybe more people were there to see the Melvins and left? Sucks for them cause the best part was the second half! It was a good show and I’m glad I decided to go, especially since this was likely the final Isis show in DC.

Fear Factory is a band I liked a lot when I was younger, their first two albums really kicked ass. They had a unique blend of metal with industrial tendencies. What I always found interesting about their sound is they really tried to write songs that sounded mechanical or robotic, not just write metal songs with repetitive keyboards and sound effects added to give it that industrial sound. Then the nu-metal fad hit in the late 90s and while I did like some of the songs on their 3rd album, Obsolete, you could tell the band was changing direction and not in a way I cared about. I didn’t really listen to them much for many years, though a friend of mine would always get their new stuff so I did hear some parts of albums I’d consider forgettable. Through sites like Blabbermouth I’d heard about the band breaking up and reforming and various other bits of drama involving their line up, until at some point I guess they just stopped being a band all together. A few years passed and their original singer, Burton C. Bell got back together with their original guitarist, Dino Cazares, and they got the band going again. Their current guitarist was moved to bass and then they added legendary drummer Gene Hoglan (whose complete credits are far too long to list here) who has been in a wide array of metal bands, from Death to Strapping Young Lad to Old Man’s Child to Testament to the Cartoon Network’s joke band Dethklok. The buzz around this new version of Fear Factory interested me enough to check them out again, and I’m glad I did. Their new album, Mechanize, released in February this year, wasn’t just a return to form from the days I enjoyed them, but they had a new energy and excitement to their sound that had been missing for a while. When I heard they’d be coming to Jaxx on their reunion tour I was excited, I certainly wanted to see this band again. The last time I saw them was almost exactly 11 years before, when they played on the side stage of Ozzfest in 1999, but this new album made them a must see for me after a decade of apathy on my part.

So there I was, up in the front waiting for the band to come on. They started early, a few minutes after 9:30pm, but when they came out the crowd was already excited. They started off with the title track off their new album, Mechanize. People enjoyed it but when they started playing the next song, Shock, the crowd was definitely into the show. I saw a few crowd surfers at this gig, and I don’t know if Jaxx security was being lax on purpose or just slow to the draw this night, but they weren’t kicking them all out as I saw some of them back in the audience throughout the show. The band came out with a good energy, Dino was singing along to the lyrics of most of the songs while playing his 8 string guitar and Burton was getting right up on top of the audience. This set list was certainly tailored to older fans like myself, as they only played 2 songs from albums between Obsolete and their newest. They played the first 4 songs from Demanufacture (one of the best A sides in metal from the 90s if you ask me) and the first 3 songs from Obsolete. They only played 1 song from their first album, Soul Of A New Machine, the overly repetitive yet still catchy Martyr. They said this was the 17th show on the tour and you could tell between songs they were starting to get a little tired as the show went on. At one point they did break for several minutes to thank the other bands, and as a kind of cool gesture they actually learned a riff from a song by each opening band and played it saying the band’s name. I was rather impressed by that and I wish other bands did that sort of thing. The break then continued as they brought out the vocalist, J Costa, from the opening act Thy Will Be Done to do a rather stupid Christopher Walken impersonation to introduce the members of Fear Factory. This really did eat up a lot of time in which they probably could have played another song, but I suppose they were just trying to take a breather. Sadly, they didn’t play my favorite song off the new album, Christploitation, but they did play another song from it for the first time ever live, Controlled Demolition (video below). Luckily they didn’t play their awful Gary Numan cover of the song Cars, which they had a video for that actually got rotation on MTV back in the day (and not on Headbanger’s Ball mind you). They did seem to feel guilty for playing the song Descent and claimed they were playing it for the women in the audience, but I thought it showcased a different side to their typical songwriting and wasn’t a terrible song to add to the set. Their show did seem to be running out of steam towards the end though, and Burton’s voice didn’t seem to be holding some of the notes as well towards the end of the gig. He seemed to be having trouble hitting higher notes as well as holding the breath to sustain longer notes. Still, they put what they had left in the tank into Zero Signal, a personal favorite of mine from way back when, and the crowd seemed to really enjoy it as much as I did. They closed the set with Replica and didn’t do the tacky staged ‘encore’ thing so many bands do. They apparently stayed after the show to sign things for people as I saw a line formed in the main concert hall long after the set was over, that’s always cool of the bands who do that. I had a lot of fun at this show, I wasn’t bothered by security about my camera at all, and they played a set list I really enjoyed. I could see how people who weren’t as familiar with the older material would have preferred a set with more of the material from the past decade, and again I really wanted to see Christploitation live, but I really can’t complain about the set list. They might be a bit older now but they’ve certainly got me interested in the next album they’ll put out and I wouldn’t mind seeing them again in a year or two, just hopefully with better openers, and ones I can arrive in time to see too!

Day 1: Friday 28 May 2010

I had checked the weather for Baltimore before I drove up for the weekend. It said that it was supposed to rain some Friday and Saturday. While it did rain during my drive up Friday, it was clear by the time I got there, and it didn’t rain again during the fest, the metal gods must have been smiling! I got to the venue a bit later than I had planned since the rain made traffic a bitch and I was running a bit late because of it. On top of that the line to get into the venue was huge, they were definitely understaffed at the door on the first day. Originally I wanted to get there in time to see Tombs at 5:30, but they were already done by the time I got in. Malignancy was about to play on the side stage when I did get there. Though I saw Nazxul‘s first US appearance on the outside street stage, the outdoor stages weren’t really in much use Friday as two of the members of Possessed missed their flight so they were rescheduled for the next day. Also, black metal band Watain requested to play indoors instead of on an outdoor stage. Their set will probably be most remembered for an incident where the bass player from DRI (who played later that night on the same stage) jumped on stage in the middle of the set and starting goofing around and mock headbanging on stage. Apparently the members of Watain didn’t like this as he was promptly knocked down and was kicked by Pelle Forsberg, mid-song mind you, until security pulled him off the stage, though I didn’t see him actually get kicked. People were talking about that for the rest of the festival. They closed their set with a cover of the Bathory song The Return Of Darkness And Evil. Once they were done I moved outside to see Gorguts, who was the first day’s headliner. They put on a good show. Two of the guys from Dysrhythmia, a personal favorite band of mine, are now members of Gorguts and it was cool seeing them play up there in such a different style band. They played a great set of classic death metal songs that were pretty awesome. Afterwards I grabbed some overpriced crappy food from the lone food vendor inside the fest. That was the last time I ate there, I got a cold burger and a bag of Lays chips for $7. What a rip off. They were selling bottles of water for $3, the same price as the bar only feet away had 16 oz cans of PBR. Guess which one I bought? After eating and talking to people for a bit I moved inside to catch DRI’s set. Raining Blood came on over the sound system while they were setting up and people were singing along and even started moshing a bit to it. When DRI came on I was kind of hoping someone from Watain would jump on stage, but that didn’t happen. They did get a crazy pit going though, best indoor pit I saw all weekend, though admittedly I spent most of my time watching outdoor bands (and I’ve got the sunburn to prove it!). They had some technical problems midway through their set, which seemed to happen a lot this weekend to various bands. The sound wasn’t that great at the fest either. Lots of bass drowning out the high end seemed to be a recurring problem. DRI was the last band of the night and so I headed back to the hotel to charge batteries and start transferring media off my memory cards so they’d be empty for day two. Friday was a good start to the fest, but really just seemed like a warm up.

Day 2: Saturday 29 May 2010

Saturday came around and I was fucking excited. There were several bands playing that I really wanted to see. I decided the first band I really wanted to see was Jucifer, and this time I had no problems with traffic or lines and got there a bit early in fact. I caught a few songs by Total Fucking Destruction and then headed inside for the second half of Obliteration‘s set. They impressed me with their performance, certainly won me over in the short time I got to watch them play. After they finished Jucifer started setting up. They brought out some of their trademark “wall of speakers” but I don’t think it was all of them. They only had 15 minutes to set up so that might be why. The last time I saw Jucifer they didn’t really stop between songs, they just sort of kept playing, going through highs and lows. Here at MDF they were playing clear cut songs with actual starts and endings. It was interesting to see them at such a festival and I could tell they won some new fans after talking to a few people in the audience after their set. I walked out of the black fog filled room and back into the daylight. Mexico’s The Chasm was playing on the side stage so I headed over there to catch the end of their set. Luckily they were running late so I got to see them play a few songs before their set ended. They were told to stop when Sadistic Intent/Possessed started playing the other outdoor stage, but they still played 1 more song, even though the crowd was thinning out. Sadistic Intent split their set time with Possessed, which makes sense because all the members of Sadistic Intent are also current members of Possessed. It was cool to see Possessed play old classics like The Exorcist and Burning In Hell as well as newer songs. I haven’t seen Possessed before but I’m glad to see Jeff Becerra was still headbanging from his wheelchair on stage. He took a moment between songs to mention some of the people in metal who have died recently, and got a chant for Dio going too. When their set ended I browsed some of the shops that were set up, bought myself one of the red posters for sale with the big demon on it and all the band names, as well as a Melechesh shirt. I was really excited to see Melechesh so I dropped my merch off at my car and decided to get to the Melechesh stage early so I could get right up front. I also wanted to see Verbal Abuse play indoors at the same time, but I’d been waiting to see Melechesh for years, ever since they canceled their 3 tour dates with Sigh in July 2007. I got in the front row just off center (I don’t like dead center as the microphone stand always seems to block their faces in my pictures). They played a killer set, mostly made up of songs from their albums Sphynx and Emissaries. The crowd surfers were going over my head but that didn’t stop me from shooting lots of video. At one point security just disappeared and people were falling onto the asphalt in front of the stage. A member of the stage crew saw this and tried to help catch people the best he could until security decided to stroll back into place. The band played a great set but since they started a bit late due to technical difficulties, they didn’t have time to play their final song, and just sort of walked off stage anticlimactically. That kind of stunk, but still, it was awesome getting to see their first US gig ever up close. I took lots of pictures and videos to remember it by, though I doubt I’ll forget as this was my favorite set of the festival. When they were done I made my way over to the side stage again to see Incantation, though walking by the open grill reminded me that at some point I’d have to eat, and looking at the schedule I wanted to watch bands play thru the rest of the night. Incantation also mentioned the recent death of Ronnie James Dio and decided to play a couple of tribute songs in their set. They played The Mob Rules by Black Sabbath and Stargazer by Rainbow back to back, quite odd hearing these songs grunted out. The rest of their set was as brutal as you’d expect from these pioneers of death metal. After they finished I decided that even though I wanted to see some of Repulsion, I had to get food in me. I did catch a bit of their set, but I wanted to be sure to be back in time to catch Asphyx. I found an excellent sandwich shop about a block and a half behind the street stage, and had a great dinner there. I headed back to the fest feeling recharged. I got there in time to catch most of Asphyx, which was cool, but I left a bit early to make sure I could get fairly close for the long awaited return of Autopsy. This was the main act of the night since Sodom had pulled out of the fest (and I think people wanted to see Autopsy more anyways). I know this was their first gig since they reunited, and people have been waiting 15 years to see Autopsy play live. I found a decent spot to shoot from and really enjoyed the show. After shooting a few videos my camera’s cards were all full from all the awesome bands of the day. Not good! I moved back a bit into the crowd to shoot with the camcorder (it can’t handle the loud volumes that close to the speakers). My memory cards being full posed a problem though, because Portal was playing tonight and I wanted to make sure I could get at least some pics of them, since they’re from Australia I doubt I’ll get another chance to see them again any time soon, if ever. As soon as Autopsy finished I headed back to my hotel and emptied my memory cards onto my laptop, then returned to the venue in time to catch Portal. I contemplated just staying at the hotel but I’m really glad I didn’t. They put on quite an intense show! The band members were all wearing black, even covering their faces, and wore rope nooses around their necks. With the black walls, dim lighting and heavy fog machine smoke, it was pretty hard to see anything clearly on stage. The vocalist came out wearing all black robes and a black hat similar in shape to a Catholic cardinal. This stage setting really fit the mood of their unique and intense style of atmospheric death metal. Such an awesome show to see, it was really out of this world and a great way to end the second day of Maryland Deathfest.

Day 3: Sunday 30 May 2010

The final day of Maryland Deathfest VIII again had several bands I wanted to see. I got there around 1:45 pm (got great parking this time) so I could catch Krallice. I wanted to see them when they were supposed to play the 9:30 Club with Mayhem and Ludicra earlier this year, but the tour was cancelled when Mayhem couldn’t get into the US. Ludicra, Krallice and Tombs re-booked another tour without Mayhem, but they didn’t come to DC on that tour, unfortunately. So this was my chance to finally catch these guys live. They didn’t let me down either! For some reason they set up and played on the wrong outdoor stage, which threw people off a bit. Those paying close attention noticed that the bass player for Gorguts, Colin Marston, is the guitarist for Krallice too. They played almost all new material, and it was pretty awesome to get to watch them play live. It was a really great set that left me wanting more, and a kick ass way to start off the day. The next band played on the same stage, and I stayed to watch the first few songs by the French band Gorod. Though one of their guitarists had a Motley Crue shirt on (trying to be ironic?) they put on an impressive show of their high energy tech-death prowess. The singer was jumping around on stage and had a lot of energy, and the bass player had a lot of stage presence too, not something you see too often in metal. I decided now would be a good time for lunch as there were many bands coming up back to back that I wanted to watch, so I headed to the diner just outside the venue. I got back in time to watch Sinister play, which was pretty cool. I’ve never seen them play live before, but I always liked their older albums like Hate and Diabolical Summoning. Their line up was drastically different than back in those days though, the only member left was the drummer, but he had now moved off the kit to take over the lead vocals. Still, it was cool to see them play some of those older songs that I enjoyed so much, even if it wasn’t the same Sinister. They still had a few songs left to play when I decided to move back to the side stage so I could get up close for Necrophobic. This was their first US show, and I certainly wanted to get some good pictures and video footage of it. It was a pretty damn entertaining show I must say, though it’s always weird seeing black metal bands play in the daylight, especially on such a hot day. This was definitely the hottest day of the festival and I sort of felt bad for them wearing all the black leather and spikes and stuff, that had to be pretty damn miserable. Regardless, they didn’t let it show and performed very well and had some great poses for taking pictures too. This was quite a highlight of the day for me. After they finished, Eyehategod was starting on the street stage. I wasn’t too interested in them, so after finding the tent with $1 bottles of water, I headed back to the side stage to rest my feet a bit and get a good spot for Pestilence. I also wanted to see Black Breath, who were playing indoors at the same time as Pestilence, but I got such a good spot for the Pestilence set I couldn’t just leave. They were too fun to watch live. This was their first US show in 16 years, and they had been scheduled to play the Maryland Deathfest the year before, but they couldn’t get into the country due to visa issues. The crowd was pumped to finally get their chance this year, and so was I. I thought they’d have Tony Choy (also of Atheist and Cynic) playing bass with them, but instead they had Jeroen Paul Thesseling playing a fretless 6 string bass. Needless to say, he was pretty damn good, as is the rest of the band. When their set ended I headed over to see Nirvana 2002 play (billed as N2002 I suppose for legal reasons). I didn’t know much about them, apparently they only ever put out a few demos from 1989 to 1991 before breaking up. I heard they had only ever played like 5 concerts before, so even though I didn’t know much about them, I figured it was worth checking them out. They weren’t bad, sounded along the lines of those older Swede bands like Entombed, Unleashed and Nihilist. They played a cover of the Kreator song Pleasure To Kill, which was the only song I recognized of their set. After they ended I walked over to the side stage to catch a bit of Pentagram‘s set. It was good to see this DC area band playing to such a large crowd, and they were eating up Bobby Liebling’s crazy on stage antics. I decided now was a good time to grab a bite to eat before Entombed hit the stage, so I headed out to find a sandwich. I got back in time to get a decent view of Entombed’s set. During their second song, Out Of Hand, someone threw a bible on stage and their singer, LG Petrov, ripped it in half mid-song. At one point he told the crowd that they don’t like circle pits, they want to see a real mosh pit going. They mostly played their more recent material, I was hoping they’d play more from Wolverine Blues and earlier, though they did close the show with Left Hand Path. Next up was Sunday’s headliner, Obituary, on the side stage. They played a great set full of their classic songs and got what was probably the largest area mosh pit going I saw all weekend. People were just going nuts for them, and they put on a really fun show. They had so many people crowd surfing that security was having trouble keeping up with them. Their set ended and I quickly moved indoors to catch the end of the local grind act Magrudergrind‘s set. They were pretty intense, as grind bands tend to be, and really had the audience going. I enjoyed catching the end of their set and it was a great way to end the fest. I didn’t see the final two bands play and Converge was supposed to be the closing band but they asked to play earlier and went on during Obituary’s set. That’s ok though, I got plenty of metal in over the course of 3 days and my arms were getting sore from so much picture and video shooting. I did run into a few people from local bands, one of the guys from Orgy Of The Damned and also someone from Gravewürm, very cool talking to both. It was quite the metal weekend and a killer concert experience that I’ll never forget. I can’t wait to find out who’s going to be playing next year, but I’ve got my fingers (upside down) crossed for Morbid Angel and Von. And congrats for getting to the end of this post, the longest one I’ve written yet. For your time I reward you with a shit load of videos I shot at the festival. I’ve got more from MDF on my YouTube page if this isn’t enough. Stay brutal!

The band came on stage a few minutes after 10pm, and people were ready. Ironically they used a “Projector” on the stage, and had interesting visuals on the backdrop throughout the concert. I prefer this method to the typical banner that most bands put up, as it it much more interesting to look at because it’s dynamic. This combined with the excellent lighting and just the right amount of smoke machine fog made for a very visually stimulating show. They made use of the entire stage and kept their wires, pedals and other equipment very neat and organized. This was probably necessary because the band really likes to move around on stage. I had a great time photographing them and while I often have to move about the audience to get good shots of the various band members that are on different locations on stage, they made it easy for me since they all moved around so much up there.

Ok, the visual stuff is cool and all, but how about the music? Well, I got a photograph of their setlist when they were setting up so I knew what to expect. Sadly, it didn’t consist of much from my favorite album of theirs, Damage Done. They did play Final Resistance though, so I can’t complain too much. Of the 15 songs they played 6 of them were from their new album, We Are The Void, and another 4 songs from their previous album, Fiction. They only played 1 song from before 1999, and they’ve been around since 1991. That’s great if you’re a newer fan of the band I suppose, though I’d have preferred a bit more of the older material in the setlist. Regardless, the band played well and it was a lot fun to watch them. Mikael Stanne has a great stage presence and really hangs right over the crowd for parts of almost every song, even letting fans scream into the mic from time to time. He didn’t talk too much between songs but did say they would probably be back next year. The sound mix wasn’t bad. The keyboards were almost non-existent from where I was standing (front and center) but that’s fine by me. It’s something that happens to a lot of metal bands, where the keyboards that get raised so highly into the mix on the album but are almost impossible to hear live. That’s fine by me though, as I really enjoy hearing the guitars carry the band more live. Also, the vocal style of the growls wasn’t the same as on the new album, another thing I think is good. I don’t really like how they sound on the new album, probably due to layering the vocals in the studio, but I think it made him sound too much like Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy. They played for about 80 minutes straight and luckily they did not do the typical rockstar encore thing. After the show Mikael came back on stage to pound a beer for some reason. Not sure what was up with that as I was already at the merch stand (bought a t-shirt from local opener band Apothys). Apparently the band members of Dark Tranquillity were going to head over to the merchandise area and sign stuff for fans, which is always cool when bands do that, but I didn’t wait around because I’m not that big on autographs.

I remember I’d heard years ago from a few people that Dark Tranquillity wasn’t a good band to see live, but trust me, whoever said that was lying. The last time I saw them I was really surprised on how good of a show they put on, and this time was even better (even if I didn’t enjoy the setlist as much). Though I didn’t have any problems this time, I did hear people in the audience grumbling about security bugging them about their cameras. Regardless, I did shoot two videos (of older songs) which you can see below. Also of note, this will be my last concert review until Maryland Deathfest. I should have a lot of pics and footage of that afterwards, and maybe some other surprises too.

After a rather long set up time, Richmond natives Municipal Waste hit the stage. The crowd was ready and it didn’t take long for people to start running onto the stage and stage diving back into the audience. The security was not happy about this and had it’s hands full trying to kick people out. Several times between songs Municipal Waste berated the security for kicking people out and I noticed the bouncers had started to just throw people back into the pit when they were crowd surfing. That was a pretty intense mosh pit, I did my best to stay out (moshing with my cameras = not good!) but you could tell it was made up of a lot of DC hardcore kids and they were ready to get brutal. People were singing along with catchy chorus lines and just all out having fun. Their set was a good mix of songs from all their albums, though I don’t think the audience cared what they played really, as long as it was fast. That’s because their vocalist, Tony Foresta, had such great stage presence. He was jumping around and instructing the circle pit which way to spin and turning the mic around so the people could help out. He told people to all jump up on stage for the final song so it wouldn’t matter if people got kicked out by security, and they did! It looked like maybe a dozen people were crammed on the stage by the time the song ended. The only gripe I really had about the show was that they did the typical “walk off stage and wait for the crowd to chant for an encore” rock star bullshit thing. I thought that was kinda glam, especially considering they’ve got such a punk influence. That’s really not a big deal, and the show was a lot of fun for everyone except security!

Below I’ve posted the videos I shot with my normal camera from this concert. If you saw me there you may have noticed I also had a palm cam that I was shooting with. It’s actually a friend of mine’s and he was letting me borrow it. The video quality came out great though the audio was terrible, complete overload once the guitars started up so I didn’t post them to YouTube with these other vids. There is a recording volume control but I didn’t know how to use it until I looked it up after the concert. That’s ok though because really this was just a test run for when I bring it to Maryland Deathfest next month. It really did a good job of adjusting to the dark setting though, which if you look at the third video below, you can see my normal camera does not. The audio is still good on those though, so I hope you enjoy them.

When I got to the venue I was told opener Voivod had just started their first song. I’ve never been a huge Voivod fan, though I was curious to see them play live. I was surprised to find that they did not have Jason Newstead (of Metallica fame) playing bass for them. He’s been a member of the band since 2003. I guess he doesn’t tour with them though. Their set wasn’t bad, but the mix was a bit rough and it was hard to hear much over the drums and vocals. They put on a good show and the crowd’s energy wasn’t bad considering they were a support act. Still, you could tell everyone was waiting for Kreator to hit the stage and by the time Voivod announced the start of their final song, I was heading to the bar to beat the rush.

Kreator took what seemed like a very long time to set up the stage. They had a lot of banners hanging on all kinds of scaffolding style metal piping and they brought their own lighting rig too. The lights went down and a recording of Choir of the Damned started playing. When the band finally took the stage the crowd was ready. They opened with The Pestilence and people were going crazy. The rather thin mosh pit for Voivod was now most of the dance floor area, and it was getting hard to keep my camera shooting straight with all the bodies flying around. The show had a lot of energy, as is to be expected from a Kreator show, and of course the lights were intense. The “old school” set list there had been so much talk of wasn’t that different than the last time I saw them. They did only play a couple songs off their latest album, Hordes Of Chaos and Demon Prince, and they threw in a few older songs like Endless Pain, but overall the setlist wasn’t much different than the one they played last time. I took a picture of the setlist from a guy who pulled it off the stage at the end of the show, and you can see it here and if you want to compare it to the picture I took of the setlist from May 09 you can by going here. I don’t want to say the show wasn’t fun, it certainly was, but I had been hoping for more older songs to be thrown in and less of the same staple songs you kind of expect them to play. I guess that was a bit of a let down, but still, it’s always a blast to see Kreator. Oh, and in case you were wondering they didn’t have any guys in drag dressed as cheerleaders on stage this time either, haha. Overall I’d say the show was a lot of fun but still, the let down of the set list sort of left a bad aftertaste in my mouth. I still recommend seeing them if you get a chance, especially if you never have before. They really get every bit of energy out of the crowd they can. Oh, also of note, got my videos from this show posted in a Blabbermouth article, which is always pretty cool when they do that. You can check that out here. I’ve also posted one of them below.