This blog specializes in heavy metal music and how it relates to Washington DC and the surrounding area. Featuring info on upcoming metal concerts in Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia, as well as info on local bands, area concert venues, reviews of live gigs, and lots of give aways.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve gotten out to a good metal show, so I was glad I could make it out to see Priestess, Naam and King Giant at the newly opened Red Palace in Washington DC on Tuesday the 9th of November 2010. This was a concert that almost didn’t happen because it had originally been booked at DC9. After the recent incident there, and subsequent cancellation of their entire upcoming concert schedule, many of those concerts were moved to the Rock & Roll Hotel, but this one wasn’t. Luckily the Red Palace had just passed all their code inspections and such and were opening the new upstairs stage area just in time to host this gig. And I’m glad they did because it was a lot of fun! Plus, being one of the first to check out a new venue is always fun.
The Red Palace is on H Street NE in the Atlas District and was formerly the venues The Red And The Black and the Palace Of Wonders. They have now combined to become the Red Palace, and by combined I mean they were knocking down walls. The entrance to the Palace Of Wonders has been completely shut off, and now the only way to enter is on the side of The Red And The Black. A bouncer outside was checking IDs and gave me a wristband. Once inside, it didn’t look too different, the bar on the right, the booths on the left. Once you make it past the booths though, there is a hole in the wall with a couple steps down that leads to the Palace Of Wonders side. There’s a small stage right in front of you, though I spoke with one of the bartenders and he said they’d be getting rid of that and the dressing rooms next to it at some point and the space would become the kitchen. Anyways, you have to go left once you step into that side, and there’s another bar on you left and a stairwell that leads to the upstairs on your right. They took the cover charge at the base of the stairs and stamped my hand and let me upstairs into the show space. Now, I’d never been inside the Palace Of Wonders before, but I had seen a few shows at The Red And The Black, and it was tiny, along the lines of the Velvet Lounge in floor space. The new set up greatly improves not only the space for the audience but also the stage is at least three times the size. A sign over the upstairs bar said the maximum occupancy was 106. Previously the stage had been set up so the band was facing away from the street, towards the back of the building, but now it’s been rotated 90 degrees so that the band performing will be facing the Palace Of Wonders side with the street to their left. There is a big seam on the floor that lets you know right where the wall had been knocked down, and a large I beam runs parallel above it. There’s a third bar at the top of the staircase, and the mixing board is set up above the lowest part of the stairwell. Aside from the space being much larger, the sound quality was great. An interesting little thing I noticed is that they placed a pair of subwoofers under the stage itself that face towards the crowd, which sounded really good. Well, enough about the new set up, lets get on to the bands…
The first band of the night was one of my favorite local bands, King Giant. The kings of southern darkness played a short but fun set. Their staples Solace and 13 To 1 kicked off the set and really got the show started with a bang. Their southern rock/stoner/sludge sound with it’s well thought out song structures and just downright catchy riffs really got people into the concert from the start. The biggest problem I had was that the set was short, but then, this was the first time I’d seen them open for a show and that just comes with the territory. Also of note, their bass player, Floyd Walters III, had an eye patch on his right eye, though it wasn’t too noticeable under his sunglasses. Hopefully he heals up quick, eye injuries suck.
The next band up was Naam from Brooklyn, New York. They’re a three piece doom metal/stoner rock band that I was pretty unfamiliar with going into the show. They were pretty entertaining, a bit on the atmospheric side at times but they had some really fun parts where they’d build up and just jam out some metal for a bit. Their heavily reverbed vocals, from both the guitarist and the bass player, was a rather haunting touch to their sound. After the first song they had the board op bathe the stage in red lighting for the rest of their set. They didn’t play a whole lot of songs, though some were rather long such as their closing song which was over 10 minutes. They weren’t bad and a good choice to be in the middle slot for this show.
Finally it was time for the headliner, Priestess, from Montreal. Sadly, as they started there weren’t many people still there for the show and the lead singer, Mikey Heppner, started off by saying jokingly thank you to “the five of you who stayed.” Once they began playing people started appearing from the stair case though. I can see that being an issue with this venue, as the upstairs bar is the smallest and also in the most cramped space, so when a band ends and there’s a rush to the bar, I’m sure many people head to the bigger downstairs bars and probably stayed there for a while. Anyways, it seemed most of them did return to the stage area upstairs, and it’s a good thing they did! Priestess slayed with their thrashy version of sludge metal and the entire show was exciting. At the beginning of the song Lady Killer one of the strings broke on Mikey’s guitar, but he didn’t miss a beat and even managed to adjust for the missing string rather well even getting through the solo decently. I had missed Priestess last time they came around, when they played at the Black Cat back in April, even though I caught the headliner High On Fire (my review of that show is here). I’m glad I finally got a chance to see them, it was great! The songs were fast paced and catchy and their drummer was insanely good. He really was the star of the show and he was punching it all night. He even did lead vocals on the song Lunar. I’m not familiar enough with them to know if he does that on the album or not, but it was still impressive to see him throw those tight drum fills in between verses. The show was a lot of fun and I’m glad I stuck around for the headliner as they really entertained with an action packed setlist that totally made me forget how late it was on a Tuesday night (though the beer helped with that a bit too). Overall it was a great show with one of the best local acts to open, a new band to check out, and a killer headliner. You can check out the videos I shot there below, some might be a bit dark but as usual the audio quality is good if nothing else.
Wow what a night for local metal! Friday the 20th of August 2010 was the first metal night at the State Theatre in Falls Church, Virginia and it was a pretty fun time. Four local bands played, Invader, Croatoan, King Giant and Timelord, and the event was organized by an employee of the State Theatre, Alan Margazano. Since this was the first of hopefully many local metal nights at the State Theatre, I didn’t really know what to expect. Word from management was that if they could sell 200 tickets the night would be considered a financial success and more metal nights would be scheduled in the future. This meant that it was important that people actually came out to this event and showed that there is a real interest in metal in the area. There was no way that I was going to miss this call for local metal heads to assemble, even if I wasn’t running this blog I’d have gone.
I got there at about 8:15 and the first band, Invader, had already started playing. I didn’t know if there would be like 20 people there when I walked in or what, but there was already at least 75 people inside the venue at that point. Invader had also recently played at the Blood And Fire Festival in July (you can read my review of that here) but they had played before I arrived then. I’m glad I got to see them this time, they put on a fun set of thrashy death metal including a cover a Slayer‘s crowd pleasing classic Raining Blood where the vocalist and drummer switched roles. Even if you don’t include the cover, their set consisted of a lot of mosh-friendly riffs and a ton of raw energy coming from the stage. You could tell they were having a lot of fun and were happy to be playing. Their set was long enough you could get a good idea of what they were about, and they were a great band to start off the event on a high note.
The next band up was Croatoan. I didn’t know much about these guys. They weren’t bad, but they seemed to have not really found their sound yet. Different songs seemed to be in different genres. One more more death oriented, one more traditional thrash, another doom. Don’t get me wrong, they were fun to watch, and they were certainly having fun entertaining the audience. Their vocalist, Emil Poss, had a good banter with the crowd going between songs, and they didn’t lose my interest through their entire set either. I just think a more defined direction would help these guys out. There’s certainly room for them to grow and I look forward to seeing them again in the future to see how they’ve progressed. They did get the pit going a few times, and I have to admit it was kind of surreal seeing a circle pit at the State Theatre.
After Croatoan played there was a long break before the next band, King Giant, started. This made it a good time to get a beer and/or order food from the bar. There wasn’t a whole lot of food to chose from on the menu, pretty standard burgers and fries (there was a veggie burger too) with the only thing a little different being the hummus. I’ve got a pic of the menu here if you want to check it out. The beer menu was certainly more filled out, though there were a couple draft beers that had run out. They did have a decent selection of bottled beer too, including a couple non-alcoholic options, as well as a fully stocked liquor bar too. You can check out the picture I shot of the beer list here. After each band played they’d hide the stage with a movie screen that dropped down and displayed various images on the screen. Often logos for the band playing next, or a funny images from the internet. They would also play samples of music by metal bands selling merch in the back of the room. These were local bands who weren’t playing this evening, but were hoping to play future metal nights. The upstairs balcony seating was closed, so people were confined to the downstairs main floor, which had tables as well as a standing room only pit area directly in front of the stage. Alan would get up on stage before each band played and introduce them as the movie screen raised up behind him revealing the next act.
When King Giant hit the stage the venue was really alive. They had the largest draw of the evening and probably should have been playing last. I won’t get into a long description of the band and their sound here, I reviewed them playing at the 9:30 Club three weeks ago and you can read that here if you want that. In short their sound is a very polished and distinctly southern heavy metal. They have a clear vision of their sound and they bring it to the stage very well, this night being no exception. They were a bit different in sound than the rest of the bands playing, but I think that’s great. Part of the draw of Metal Night, at least for me, is seeing a mixture of bands from different sub-genres exposing each other’s fans to new music they wouldn’t have heard before. I’m sure there were some people who didn’t like the sound as much, there always is, but I talked to several people who were impressed with King Giant and they certainly won some new fans this night. Their set wasn’t as long as it had been at the 9:30 Club, but it still had fan favorites like Solace and Mississippi River in there. In all, it was another good live performance by one of the area’s best unsigned metal bands.
Next up was the final band of the night, Timelord. I’ve seen them on the calendar opening for bands at Jaxx before, but never gotten the chance to see them. Alan introduced them as an Iron Maiden influenced band and he wasn’t kidding. Vocalist Matt Aub certainly has a likeness to Bruce Dickenson in his vocal tone, though he is also playing guitar while singing. These guys definitely knew how to play their instruments and their set was full of killer guitar solos and even a drum solo at one point. I think calling them Maiden influenced thrashy power metal would probably best describe them. Unfortunately, power metal isn’t my favorite metal sub genre and while their set wasn’t bad by any means, it was probably better suited to fans of the genre more than myself. The songs didn’t have a lot of variation, which isn’t always a bad thing, but when paired with my lack of interest in power metal I found myself getting distracted and talking to people. Fans of old school heavy metal, NWOBHM, and power metal in general would probably enjoy these guys a lot more than I did. At one point a couple of the guys from Invader showed up on stage with them and started headbanging. After their final song, Cult Of The Dead, people were chanting for them to play more but the movie screen started lowering and people knew the concert was over.
The first metal night ended a few minutes shy of midnight. Afterwards Alan announced over the PA system that the night had been a success and the next “Monthly” Metal Night at the State Theatre would be held in October. The event was hell of a lot of fun, and I spent a good amount of time talking to people. Throughout the night I saw a lot of familiar faces from the area’s metal scene and got the chance to meet some new people and bands too. I picked up some new music and also got to check out some bands play that I’d never seen before. On my way out the door Alan told me over 230 tickets had been sold, plenty more than the 200 needed to ensure more metal nights at the State Theatre in the future. They’ve got a big stage with great lights and a good sound system too, it’s very cool that they’re giving real metal a chance to use it. It’s really amazing that this all came together from it’s beginnings as a Facebook group page (join it here for updates on future metal nights). They’re already starting the search for the next event’s band line up and you can make suggestions for that here. I’d like to see more genres represented at the next one, maybe some black and doom and a bit less thrash. Also, you can check out videos I shot of each of the four bands who played at the end of this post and view the photos I’ve posted here. The event’s turn out was good and while Alan deserves a lot of credit for putting this all together as well as the bands who played, all the people who got off their asses and came out and bought tickets for a night of local metal deserve a big thanks for making it not only possible but successful enough to ensure another metal night. Lets keep this ball rolling and get even more people to come out to the next one on October!
On Saturday the 31st of July 2010 I went to the 9:30 Club for my second metal concert of the weekend. While I went to the Black Cat the night before to check out a few touring black metal bands (you read that review here) this concert was not very similar at all, for several reasons. There were three local bands playing, though I only saw the headliner, King Giant. That’s right, a local metal act was headlining the 9:30 Club, a rare event indeed. These guys are a sort of southern sounding sludge band, I guess. It’s hard to explain their sound perfectly, though I could easily see them opening a tour with bands like Baroness or Down.
Before I even stepped into the venue you could see a row of motorcycles outside, as well as a very strong police presence. I’m not sure if there was a problem there before I arrived, but it was a bit offsetting. Once inside I saw there was a pretty good turn out for a show of local acts. The place wasn’t full by any means, the upper level had only a handful of people, but the floor level was mostly full. I got there about 10 minutes before the show started and easily walked right up to the front of the stage. I’d asked what the camera policy for the night was at the door and they said there wasn’t one, video and pics were all ok. Perfect! I ended up getting what I’d call my best pictures ever at the 9:30 Club. This was a good thing as these guys were very memorable and fun to watch on stage. I can’t remember the last time I saw a band live that had members wearing cowboy hats, but it was a vastly different audience than had been at the Black Cat the night before! They didn’t have much else on stage besides their instruments and amps, tho they did have a bottle of Jack up there as well as some rather randomly placed taxidermy of small woodland creatures. The band’s lead singer, Dave Hammerly, was very engaging on the stage, throwing his hands up in the air, pumping his fists, occasionally headbanging a bit and just generally walking around on the stage like he owned the place. He did a great job of keeping the audience engaged between songs. For example, this concert was on the birthday of their bass player, Floyd Walters, and at one point in the set they poured him a shot on stage and instructed everyone to take a birthday toast with him. Dave even went so far as to apologize to the women and children in attendance before playing the song Mississippi River. This song was the song I had wanted to see them play the most live, and I certainly wasn’t the only one as it got a great reaction from the audience, to which Dave quipped that it was funny how the songs about killing people get the best responses. But this is a band that has quite a few good songs, which is really saying something considering they only have one full length album out. Their music isn’t super complex, but it’s very well polished, especially for a local act, both in the studio and live. The lyrics tend to be very dark and sometimes quite personal, often dealing with personal and inner struggles. I enjoyed the entire set though the songs Burning Regrets and Solace, as well as the above mentioned Mississippi River, really stood out to me in the live setting.
I really didn’t find a single song they played all night to be boring at all, it was really entertaining the entire way through and I could see these guys getting noticed outside of the area. They’ve got some music for download at this location (some is free, some you have to pay for) if you’d like to check them out. The pictures I shot of King Giant that night can be seen here, and below I’ve posted the videos I shot. The volume of the vocals isn’t great on the ones I shot close to the stage, though the Mississippi River song has much better sound since I shot it from the upper level. Unfortunately it has the worst visuals as the lighting didn’t show up as well up there. After all this if you want to see these guys play live (and you really should), you’ve got a great chance coming up on Friday 20 August 2010. King Giant is one of the bands playing at the State Theatre in Falls Church, Virginia for their first ever metal night. I’ve got more info on that, including how to buy tickets, posted here. It should be a great night of metal, and if it’s half as good of a show as this was, it’ll be worth the price of admission. Now here’s the videos, enjoy!
Well, last night, Wednesday 16 June 2010, I headed over to the 9:30 Club in Washington DC to check out the Melvins and Isis. I was a bit torn as a band some of my friends are in, the Chance, were playing the Rock & Roll Hotel the same night, but since this was the farewell tour for Isis, I figured I’d better see them while I had um, the chance. They announced on their blog (here) in May that after this tour the band was going to break up. They didn’t really give a real answer as to why they are breaking up, sticking to the standard “artistic integrity” statement. I’d imagine there’s more to it than that though, probably starting to have families and don’t like touring, or maybe they feel their music is starting to get stagnant and they’re out of new ideas and feel it’s getting boring. Regardless, I have a feeling they’ll be back for a reunion tour in 5-15 years, after they realize real jobs suck and/or their new musical projects aren’t making near the amount of money they did in Isis. Who knows though, and for now this show will be known as their last in Washington DC.
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.
Well Maryland Deathfest VIII is over, and it was a great 3 days of heavy metal. This was the third time I’ve been to Maryland Deathfest, though this was the first time I went for all 3 days. I got to see lots of bands I never thought I’d have the chance to, and got to check out some bands I’d been wanting to for a while. Talked to lots of metal heads from all over the place as well as from the DC area and I shot about 1,000 photographs as well as 34 videos of 19 different bands. I kept myself busy! Luckily it didn’t rain at all while I was there. Sunday got really hot, not sure what the temperature was officially, but it was even hotter in the middle of those huge crowds I’m sure. Overall it was a lot of fun, so much fun that I wanted to write down as much as I could remember of it here. It’s a long post so I broke it up into sections. I’ve got lots of videos posted at the bottom of this post. And now, here’s my recap of my time spent at this year’s Maryland Deathfest.
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!
Well, this evening was a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure style night. It was a Sunday night, the 11th of April 2010, and I had a small problem, 2 bands I wanted to see were playing the same night at different venues. High On Fire at the Black Cat and the Doomriders at the Rock & Roll Hotel. I called up a couple friends of mine to see if they wanted to try to squeeze in both shows. They were up for the double feature and we headed off to the Rock And Roll Hotel to catch the Doomriders first. The show was running late and when we got there the first band, Fang Island, was still setting up. I only watched them for a single song before heading upstairs. They weren’t too interesting to me, and not very metal anyways. For some reason they had 3 guitarists on stage, and their bass player switched off to play they keyboard. After a couple beers we went back down while the Doomriders were setting up. The crowd wasn’t too close together and we basically just walked right up to the front. One of the friends I was with had another friend at the Black Cat who was updating us on the status of the bands playing there. We decided that when Priestess was playing their last song we’d have to leave, regardless of if the Doomriders were done or not. Anyways, the Doomriders finally did come out and they were really energetic. I’m sure they won over some new fans who were really just there to see the headliner Red Sparowes, people were getting into them. I also saw a little kid (pic) up there in the front row, he was even throwing horns and headbanging to the music. Their show kicked ass so you can’t blame him! One thing though, their bass player, a really tall guy named Jebb Riley, was actually too tall for the stage! His head was hidden from most of the crowd during the show because the overhead speakers were blocking him. I’ve never seen that kind of problem before, haha. The mix was pretty good I’ve got to say, though the lighting was pretty crappy (the R&R Hotel doesn’t have good lights so that’s to be expected). They were playing their last song of the night, which was apparently also their slowest and longest, when we got the message that we needed to head over to the Black Cat. We didn’t wait for the long song to end and promptly headed straight for the door.
We piled into my car and headed over to the Black Cat. I found a good parking spot on the street right next to the venue, and we went right into the club. We could hear High On Fire had already started playing Frost Hammer, though the ticket guy said the band had just started. We rushed up the stairs and headed into the crowd. We got up there pretty close fairly easily, I guess people were scared of the mosh pit? As usual the lighting wasn’t great, but I still got some good pics I think. The sound mix was terrible though, I mean really bad. I’ve posted videos below and they’re actually a pretty good representative of the sound. It’s not my camera that makes it sound muffled, it’s the mix. I even heard a few random shouts from the crowd between songs demanding the guitars to be turned up. The vocals were really low in the mix too, at least from where I was standing. Matt Pike (of Sleep fame) really had a hold of the crowd though, people were going crazy and his stage presence was a big part of that, even if you could see his beer gut and ass crack (depending on which way he was facing) the whole time. Regardless, the show was really fun and they played a lot of the songs from their new album, Snakes For The Divine, which is cool because that album is pretty awesome. I was trying to shoot a video of the title track but some guy with a flash light told me I wasn’t allowed to take video. I don’t think that is the Black Cat’s usual policy, so maybe the band requested that. Strange. I still shot the 3 vids below before he told me to stop, though I thought Snakes For The Divine was the best song they played all night. Still, the show was a blast, the crowd was going crazy and the metal was loud!
In all the entire night was a lot of fun, I haven’t done the concert hopping thing in a while and it was a great night for metal in DC (even though I missed the first ever metal show at DC Star, but there was no way I could fit that in too). I haven’t been to a whole hell of a lot of concerts so far this year, but I should be seeing several awesome gigs here up through Maryland Deathfest, for which I’ve already got a 3 day pass. This is going to be a good spring for metal heads in the DC area.
the newly opened Red Palace in Washington DC on Tuesday the 9th of November 2010. This was a concert that almost didn’t happen because it had originally been booked at DC9. After the recent incident there, and subsequent cancellation of their entire upcoming concert schedule, many of those concerts were moved to the Rock & Roll Hotel, but this one wasn’t. Luckily the Red Palace had just passed all their code inspections and such and were opening the new upstairs stage area just in time to host this gig. And I’m glad they did because it was a lot of fun! Plus, being one of the first to check out a new venue is always fun.
the space for the audience but also the stage is at least three times the size. A sign over the upstairs bar said the maximum occupancy was 106. Previously the stage had been set up so the band was facing away from the street, towards the back of the building, but now it’s been rotated 90 degrees so that the band performing will be facing the Palace Of Wonders side with the street to their left. There is a big seam on the floor that lets you know right where the wall had been knocked down, and a large I beam runs parallel above it. There’s a third bar at the top of the staircase, and the mixing board is set up above the lowest part of the stairwell. Aside from the space being much larger, the sound quality was great. An interesting little thing I noticed is that they placed a pair of subwoofers under the stage itself that face towards the crowd, which sounded really good. Well, enough about the new set up, lets get on to the bands…
Their southern rock/stoner/sludge sound with it’s well thought out song structures and just downright catchy riffs really got people into the concert from the start. The biggest problem I had was that the set was short, but then, this was the first time I’d seen them open for a show and that just comes with the territory. Also of note, their bass player, Floyd Walters III, had an eye patch on his right eye, though it wasn’t too noticeable under his sunglasses. Hopefully he heals up quick, eye injuries suck.
going into the show. They were pretty entertaining, a bit on the atmospheric side at times but they had some really fun parts where they’d build up and just jam out some metal for a bit. Their heavily reverbed vocals, from both the guitarist and the bass player, was a rather haunting touch to their sound. After the first song they had the board op bathe the stage in red lighting for the rest of their set. They didn’t play a whole lot of songs, though some were rather long such as their closing song which was over 10 minutes. They weren’t bad and a good choice to be in the middle slot for this show.
see them, it was great! The songs were fast paced and catchy and their drummer was insanely good. He really was the star of the show and he was punching it all night. He even did lead vocals on the song Lunar. I’m not familiar enough with them to know if he does that on the album or not, but it was still impressive to see him throw those tight drum fills in between verses. The show was a lot of fun and I’m glad I stuck around for the headliner as they really entertained with an action packed setlist that totally made me forget how late it was on a Tuesday night (though the beer helped with that a bit too). Overall it was a great show with one of the best local acts to open, a new band to check out, and a killer headliner. You can check out the videos I shot there below, some might be a bit dark but as usual the audio quality is good if nothing else.
DCHeavyMetal.com 