The day of Deicide, tickets for the show were selling like hotcakes at War on Music- which is a pretty exciting prospect, all things considered. I was looking forward to the show at the Zoo, which always offers a very metal atmosphere and good angles for pictures. Mid-afternoon, however, Cory came in asking about whether we had anymore tickets, and restocked us as well as taking his hard-earned cash. He then informed me of the unfortunate reality of the border officers being dick-faces and not accepting the work permits that the bands possessed, so the show might have to be moved. In the end, the show was moved from our beloved Zoo, to the Pyramid. You know if Cory has to change the venue the day of show, he has had a baaaaad day. Poor Cory!
Not only did the venue change, but the show time too... 9pm doors, and the show started at 9:30 sharp. Lecherous Nocturne were up first, and what a good opener! They were a generous helping of technical and impressive death metal. Their bassist James O`Neal used a Spanish guitar style of picking for the bass. Finger picking not only up, but down as well, to get the quick six-note progressions he doled out like they were nothing but the blues. Their vocalist, Brent, didn`t do a hell of a lot of talking between songs- more just song titles then the metal began again. Sometimes that`s nice, when all you want to hear is some head-bangingly awesome metal, but in this case, it might just have been due to lack of charisma or even fatigue! After all, the bands and crew spent six hours at the border that day. Bad day for everyone. At one point, the vocalist for Abigail Williams did the vocals for a song, and it was a treat! Over all, I would recommend seeing Lecherous Nocturne, and they were generous enough to give me two of their CD`s, which I will gladly promote on Rock n` Roll Damnation and Radio Active METAL.
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| No faces - Just hair |
One thing I can say about Abigail Williams was that they were really freaking loud. It was different depending on where you were standing, but they were the band that likely hurt my hearing the most. They didn`t sound bad, they were just cranked. Atmospheric and doomy as well as shrouded in mist, Abigail Williams played an interesting set with only three members of their expected five member group. I was not very familiar with their work, so my expectations were non-existent. They disappointed friends of mine, but personally, I thought their delivery was strong and really spoke to the doom metal fan in me that enjoys the slow glowing production of eerie sounds. For me, it was wave after wave of smoke machine and hard-hitting mysticism that I have only gotten once before with the band Russian Circles, whom also had a diminished group with no vocalist. Awesome!
Jungle Rot was the band I came that night to witness. I had heard so many good things, and any time we had a Jungle Rot CD at War on Music, it was either sold immediately, or put on hold. I wasn't too sure of what to expect, since I had only heard a scant amount of their extensive discography- with Kill On Command being supported for this tour, and incidentally, the only one they had for sale.
So I strapped in and prepared for a death metal barrage that I was sure my ears would be delighted with. I would like to point out that Dave Matrise is a mean looking and fitting frontman for a band with such attitude and a formidably austere and aggressive sound. He looks like the war part of the band, while Geoff Bub has hair like jungle vines and they both really struck me as being exactly how this band should portray itself. I can't discount the energy James Genenz put forth on stage as the bassist, and moved around and was actually interesting to take pictures of. Jesse Beahler, former drummer of like... five other bands is the newest to the group but fits right in and plays like the rhythmic and constant beating of a war drum should. War drummer, you could say. Jungle Rot was the whole package, in terms of stage presence fitting how they sound. I was personally extremely impressed- which is why I bought five copies of Kill on Command afterwards! The whole room was booming and thrashing while Jungle Rot played. They really got the crowd riled up before Deicide took the stage, and they're the right kind of band to have supporting any old school death metal veteran band. Jungle Rot has been around since 1994, so why hadn't I heard of them before? I'm still baffled at their relative obscurity, despite their obvious strengths as a metal presence. I urge any one of you who might read this, to go pick up a copy of one of their albums, or steal it from the internet, then buy it. They're awesome, and they're the right kind of stuff to have in your death metal collection.
Ahh, Deicide... a band that has eluded my interest since I got into death metal. It's not that their sound is poor, it's just that I've never really cared for it. I'm being very honest, when I say I was excited to see the explosive crowd more than the band itself. Everyone who likes Deicide REALLY likes Deicide, and that makes it enjoyable either way. When they first started, I knew I had permission to get on stage and take pictures, but I was going to wait until there was a break before another song, so that when they started playing, I knew I had at least a few minutes of actual music to cover, just in case they abruptly stopped and I was caught on stage like an asshole. I saw that there was actual security, so that also prompted me to wait before hitting the stage. They played for about fifteen minutes before stopping, and then I made sure the security guy behind me knew what I was up to, before he deemed me dangerous and dragged me, half-nelson, off the stage. Steve Asheim is probably one of the coolest drummers I have ever photographed, and he's also wicked to hang out with- very friendly! I literally only had to go on stage once to take about five pictures of him- all of which were freaking awesome. Without a guard rail typically provided at the Zoo, it became a pretty volatile place for me to take any pictures. When a mosh pit forms, I know enough not to try and get to the front for fear of being slammed and losing my camera. The room was getting pretty warm by the time it was half way through Deicide's set, and everyone was fairly randy and riled up. So the crowd became a swarm of moshing, violent, surly and yet angrily affectionate metalheads who came out to see some death metal bands. It was a good night, even if I don't particularly care for Glen and the gang.
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| Good times had by all |
All Pictures found here ---->
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