3 posts tagged “heavy metal”
I've never moved more than 20 miles away from the house I grew up in. If I had, by now I probably would have experienced the bittersweet sensation of revisiting my old, nearly forgotten childhood haunts - the creeks I caught toads in, the dirt paths I crashed my bike on, and the long gone fields where I used as short cuts on the way to school. Of course, living close by, I can visit my mom or drive by my old stomping grounds anytime I want. There's no real sense of nostalgia there. Anyway, most of the open spaces of my childhood have been eradicated by that ever advancing wall of condominiums which seems to be botoxing the face of our state like nobody's business.
Anyway, that seems to be a very weird intro to a post entitled "free heavy metal", but for me, going to a free thrash metal/punk festival is sort of like revisiting old childhood haunts, especially since two of the bands, Exodus and Attitude Adjustment, were favorites of mine once upon a time. It was interesting to note that while I moved on from those days, at least some of the people I used to see at shows during the eighties have not. In fact, some of them seemed not to have aged either physically or mentally.
The festival in question was Tidalwave II, which took place at McLaren Park in San Francisco, in the very inappropriately named (for this event, anyway) Jerry Garcia Amphitheater. I only attended day one, arriving late and leaving early, so if you want a more complete review of this two-day festival, you'll have to look elsewhere.
The park itself was on a hill near the armpit of highways 280 and 101, and overlooked the little depression of land where the Cow Palace lurks. It is covered in Eucalyptus trees, which hide the amphitheater from the road. Of course, the loud heavy metal echoing through the hills served as a sonic beacon for late arrivals. I was hoping that the loud heavy metal was emanating from Zombie Holocaust, since I wanted to catch Detente's entire set. Unfortunately, it was Detente. I'm not sure how many songs we missed - probably only one or two, since we arrived no more than five or ten minutes after their start time. As we wandered into the amphitheater, they were just finishing up Russian Roulette, which is off their one and only album, "Recognize No Authority." The album came out in 1986, and featured vocalist Dawn Crosby, who went on to sing for Fear of God, and then died of some alcohol related complications. She always sounded so tortured and angry when she sang, except when she sounded profoundly sad, so I guess it's not to much of a surprise that something like alcohol would eventually do her in. She packed more real emotion into her vocals than any ten other heavy metal vocalists, so I was curious to see if this new incarnation of Detente, featuring Ann Boleyn from eighties band Hellion on vocals, would measure up.
The crowd at this point was still pretty thin, but there were somewhere between ten and twenty people down by the stage, with many others in the seats or on the lawn above, clustering in the shady spots. Ann Boleyn was doing a fine job on stage, although sometimes the high notes seemed a little thin. In retrospect, it may have been because we were standing between the P.A. speakers, or because she held the mic further away from her mouth when she screamed, but it's a minor quibble really. The band had been whittled down to a four piece too, with guitarist Ross Robinson (who is now apparently a well-known producer) no longer in the fold. The other three members, Dennis Butler on drums, Caleb Quinn on guitars, and Steve Hochheiser on bass ("he looks like a shop teacher," my friend Justin observed) were still present. The band ripped through most of the songs from their album, including, if I remember correctly, It's Your Fate, Holy War, Blood I Bleed, Vultures in the Sky, Shattered Illusions (I think), and maybe one or two more. The songs themselves were fine examples of early eighties thrash metal, back when the genre was still struggling to be born. I have to say that Ann Boleyn did a fine job with the songs, but I still prefer Dawn Crosby's vocals. That said, I never managed to see the first version of Detente live, so it's hard to compare the two. I never really heard much of Ann Boleyn's band, Hellion, but maybe I'll have to go check them out now. Ann herself, when she's not singing heavy metal, is now an attorney. Check out her myspace page. It was also interesting to note that Detente and headliners Exodus had both suffered through the deaths of their singers.
The next two bands, Havoc and Psychosomatic, really did nothing for me. They played their instruments competently enough, but they didn't really add anything new to a genre already oversaturated with similar bands. We sat up on the lawn and ate barbequed portabello mushroom burgers, courtesy of Cat's Head barbeque. We also amused ourselves by following the exploits of Metal Dog - a small dog dressed in a classic metal denim vest, which included, among other things, an Angelwitch patch. Yay! That said, I saw people with dogs, and even a ferret, not to mention small children who didn't appear to be wearing ear plugs, down near the stage. For me, that constitutes animal/child cruelty. Get you goddamn pets and kids away from the decibels, you assholes!
Attitude Adjustment, on the other hand, really got the nostalgia wagon rolling. I must have seen them at least twenty times during the eighties, although most of those shows featured a line-up that had no members in common with the one on stage at Tidalwave. This new Attitude Adjustment featured original singer Kevin, and original guitarist Eric, with some new (to me) guys filling in on bass, second guitar, and drums. They started with the classic Dead Serious, and proved to be good at riling up the crowd between songs as well. In fact, most of the songs they played were from a couple of decades ago. Let's see... Dope Fiend, Johnny, DSFA (dedicated to second singer Andy, who was in the crowd somewhere, although I never ran across him), In the Center, American Paranoia, and more that I'm forgetting, I'm sure. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if they did any songs that I didn't recognize. The sounded tight and powerful too, with the guitars really crunching along, and Kevin spitting out the vocals with conviction as people stage-dived into the audience. The stage diving was kind of stupid really, since the ground was hard, gravelly concrete. Kids will be kids though, and I suppose I did my share of stupid stage diving when I was their age. It was really great to hear these songs again, and I found myself really getting into their set. It was almost as if 20 years hadn't passed, and I could very clearly remember what I liked about this band - a sort of catchy, "fuck you" aggression that drives the songs relentlessly forward and leaves you breathless at the end. Okay, maybe that's overdoing it a bit, but you get the idea.
Hirax were up next, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Hirax was another band that I'd owned (and sold) records by back in the eighties. I'd seen them live, as well as singer Katon W. DePena's other band, Phantasm (featuring original Metallica bassist Ron McGovney). I'd never been too impressed with Katon's voice, although it was the selling point of the band(s). The music was always aggressive thrash metal, with Katon's voice being high and clean sounding, which was (and still is) a departure for thrash metal vocalists. For me, the voice never seemed to fit the music, and I preferred the gravel-throated singers. I was pleasantly surprised when Hirax started their set though. Katon's voice was powerful, and has developed a bit of a rough edge since I'd last heard them. I know they've put out some releases recently, but I haven't been paying attention since I don't really listen to so-called thrash metal anymore - not often anyway. Katon is also a hell of a showman, and it was fun just to watch his face as he sung. He dedicated just about every song to somebody or other, including the old school Bay Area metalheads, which I suppose includes me. Lots more stage diving ensued, including old school Ruthie's Inn veteran Toby Rage doing his signature jump off the towering P.A. into the crowd. That in itself was enough to transport me back a couple of
decades, especially since he doesn't seem to have changed in any way - the ghost of metal past.
Exodus was up last, and they started strongly with Bonded by Blood, a classic from their Ruthie's Inn days. They also did And Then There Were None (dedicated to deceased singer Paul Baloff) and Piranha. Unfortunately, new singer Rob Dukes doesn't have the charm and charisma of Paul Baloff. He's a competent singer, but in a paint-by-numbers sort of way. Add to that some really stupid between song banter, and you have a recipe for disaster. Exodus always set themselves apart from other thrash bands by having lyrics about violence, which as a teenager I thought was cool. But now, as a forty year old, I find them, well... stupid and pointless. Apparently
Exodus never left their childhood haunts. They haven't really grown in any way since the eighties.
With Attitude Adjustment, this didn't seem to matter, but then again their lyrics were intelligent to begin with. Exodus, on the other hand, are still singing about things that fifteen year old metal kids think are cool. I'm a forty year old metal kid. Sometimes you just can't go back home again. We left after they played Piranha because the nostalgia started to stink like rotten fish.
In the middle of Candlemass' set, bassist and founding member Leif Edling took the mic from new vocalist Robert Lowe (of Solitude Aeternus fame), and asked the audience, "how many of you were at the Stone?" Five or six hands, including mine, went up. It later occurred to me that there were a number of people in the audience at Slim's who weren't even born when Candlemass last came through the area and played the now defunct Stone on Broadway. It was, after all, seventeen years ago.
I feel old.
The first time I heard Candlemass, they weren't even called Candlemass yet. They were called Nemesis. Leif Edling sang. His voice was, in some ways, more suited to the music than those of the vocalists who came later. He didn't reach those high notes, but instead moaned along with the music like he'd really, truly lost all hope. It was nice, in an extremely maudlin sort of way - especially the song Black Messiah, which was later reworked to less much effect on a mid-period Candlemass album.
I feel older.
Like I said, I saw them at the Stone back in 1991, when Messiah Marcolin was handling vocals. He was quite a character, with his monk's habit and, er... imposing girth. He exuded energy, but I can still remember the terror of audience members when he jumped off (or was it merely threatening to jump off - memory eludes me) the stage. I seem to remember him thunking down on the floor after everybody in the vicinity vacated the area - sort of like air rushing into the temporary void created by lightning. Heavy metal thunder. The songs were great too, especially the ones from the first album, although I preferred the previous vocalist, who, I remember reading, was little more than a session musician.
Fast forward to the present. Candlemass has gone through a few other vocalists, none of them lasting for more than a single cd. Messiah returned, then went away again (that almost sounds like something from the Bible, doesn't it?). Finally, Robert Lowe, from the world's foremost Candlemass sound-alike band, Solitude Aeternus, shows up not only sounding like Candlemass, but being in Candlemass. A darn fine job he does of it too. At the show, he arrived on stage wearing an overcoat that made him look like an evil (this is heavy metal, after all) sea captain. The stage was punctuated with a number of white, waist-high crosses - it's kind of funny the way heavy metal bands have co-opted that symbol. I'm not sure what Candlemass' stance on religion is. They seem to vacillate back and forth on the subject. I noticed the guitarist was wearing a cross too, though. Song-wise, they seemed to favor the first and most recent albums, which was fine with me. They played my two favorite Messiah-era songs as well - At the Gallows End and Samarithan - the latter being the final song of the evening, right after the first encore of Black Dwarf, from the last cd with Messiah. They also played my two favorite songs from their first album, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (great album; too bad about the name), Solitude, and The Sorcerer's Pledge. Robert Lowe did a great job on all of the material, but he did seem to click best with the songs from the newest album, King of the Grey Islands.
Oh Yeah, Daylight Dies opened. They sounded like early Katatonia, with melodic riffs and growled vocals. Nice, but ultimately kind of boring.
Check out the Candlemass Myspace site here.
Paganfest USA, at the Avalon Ballroom (of all places), Santa Clara, CA, 5/9/08
Although I've been listening to heavy metal of one kind or another for over thirty years now, I've become a little more particular about what kind of metal I put in my ears these days. I went through a period of always trying to find the band that played faster than everybody else, or the band that was more disgusting or upsetting than everybody else, and through a period of attempting to locate the absolute slowest bands. Once both of these extemes had been reached, I went and listened (and still listen to) lots of very non-metal music as well. My job at Tower (books, but next to the record store) broke my narrow world clean open in a lot of ways, including introducing me to "world" music (I put it in quotes because it's really a meaningless term, since most "world" music is more rooted to a single geographical location than other types of music - it's not global at all, it's local!). I developed an immediate love for Scandinavian folk music, starting with the likes of Agnes Buen Garnas and Ale Moller/Lena Willemark's great Nordan project, and moving on from there. It was only a matter of time before metal reached out its long, cold fingers and co-opted all of this epic Scandinavian misery, which leads me to the review below.
Paganfest rolled into town last night. The town in question is Santa Clara, California, a dull suburb not known for its metal shows (or any other type of show, come to think of it). The venue, the Avalon, turned out to be walking distance from my mom's house in nearby Cupertino (of course, anything is walking distance as long as there isn't a body of water between you and your destination, but that's another story). I arrived at the club to find a long line of metalheads outside, decked out in the traditional metal costume of black, black, black. I joined the line and we inched forward. The sound of a band playing boomed dully through the walls - Germany's SuidAkrA had started their set, uncharacteristically (for any kind of live music) on time. We turned the corner and saw that, Disney-style, there was at least as long a line once you entered the doors. Plastered on the walls in several places, next to a sign advising that moshing and crowd surfing wasn't cool, was this sign:
Needless to say, I didn't actually see any disappointed attendees dragging their viking regalia back to their cars.
Once inside, I discovered that it was a pretty posh club, with acres of little round tables, a couple of video screens, brick facades, mood lighting, and more. SuidAkrA was in the middle of the set of loud, raspy-throated metal. Occasionally, a sung chorus or melodic break would rise above the din, reminding me a bit of the melodies found on mid-period Bathory albums (Hammerheart, Twilight of the Gods, etc.). This would be a recurring theme throughout the night. Historical note: Bathory was among the first of the so-called "viking metal" bands, but that was only after they'd passed through their "sound like Venom" stage. Fellow Swedes, Heavy Load, did this even earlier and much more melodically, but I digress... SuidAkrA weren't as good as either of the aforementioned bands, but they were enjoyable, even if the sound seemed a little hollow somehow. It's a shame they started playing while most of the crowd was still in line outside.
In very short order their set ended. I scanned the crowd for familiar faces, but found none. The crowd seemed mostly composed of teenagers and twenty-somethings, with only a handful of older people present. I probably only saw four or five people obviously older than me, and at least a few people who looked like they were still in elementary school.
The bands were playing on shared equipment, so there wasn't a big wait while the amps and drumsets were dragged back and forth. Eluveitie (from Switzerland) soundchecked a number of instruments before starting their set, including (to my excitement) a hurdy gurdy and a violin. When they finally started, it was with 8 band members. In addition to the aforementioned instruments and the more traditional metal ones, they also featured an array of tin whistles and gaida (an eastern european version of the bagpipes. The main vocalist (at times, everybody sang) played a mandola as well. This marks the first time I've seen an extreme metal band use a hurdy gurdy, and the first time I've seen someone headbanging while playing a tin whistle. They were definitely a sight to behold, with all of the tattoos, flying hair, and unexpected instruments. The crowd, who weren't allowed to dance, and kept under close watch by eager security, resorted to the time-tested heavy metal standbys of fist pumping and headbanging. Oh, and let's not forget the gratuitous use of the devil horn sign (which got George Bush in trouble in Norway once, but that's another story). I liked them enough to immediately buy their newest cd, Slania, and I'll definitely go see them again if they tour in the future. Strange that a Swiss band would sound so Scottish.
After another short break, during which I did an Umlaut-style audit of the merch table (if you bought one of everything, you'd spend $660, just $6 short of the most heavy metal of numbers - I must also add at this point that the club's address is 777, a most un-heavy metal number, unless you happen to be Trouble, or Stryper, or something...)
Tyr, from the Faroe Islands, marched on stage with little fanfare and immediately broke into a pair of songs from their upcoming album, Land. Using only traditional heavy metal instrumentation, they managed to sound both more "viking" and more "folk" than all of the other bands combined. The effortlessly pulled off a (tragically short) set of songs that sounded like they could have been written 5 or 6 hundred years ago and sung in longhouses somewhere along the coast of Greenland. Otyg is the only band I can think of who sounds anything like them. They were also the only band of the evening who I'd heard previous to this tour. I'm not sure why they played such a short set, but looking at the festival's MySpace page comments, this wasn't the only gig where this happened. Did they draw the short straw? Amongst the crowd, there was a lot of disappointment at the brevity of their set. Some even seemed outraged. Too bad - I would have loved to hear them to play for another hour or two.
Turisas were next, and the fans were already shouting for them before they hit the stage. To me it sounded for all the world that people were loudly chanting, "curry sauce! CURRY SAUCE!" When they finally arrived on stage, they did so in makeup and costume. The costumes were a sort of fur and armor plate thing, and the makeup made it look like they'd been mauled by bears. I can't fault their music though. They had a violinist and an accordian player to round out the standard instrumentation, and the singer was quite a character, often stopping to joke with the audience. He, being Finnish (the alcohol capital of the EU?), lamented the lack of good beer in the U.S., and the fact that some clubs wouldn't let the band drink on stage, leading them to resort to lifting pints of.... water... during their drinking song. The music was lively, growly, and melodic, sometimes with a folk tinge, and sometimes sounding epically Bathory-esque (geez, how many times can I mention Bathory in one review?). They also played a version of a 70's disco song (which I didn't recognize) complete with a disco ball brought out on stage by the singer. Great live band!
Finally, headliners Ensiferum hit the stage, and proved to be a bunch of shirtless, kilt-wearing young Finns. It was a bit of a letdown to see keyboards instead of the by-now-expected array of folk instruments. When they started playing, it was with studied ferocity, with the vocalist effortlessly emitting a most pleasing raspy roar. Occasionally, soaring choruses would float through the savagery, lending an epic feeling to the proceedings, but by this time I was starting to fade due to the fact that I'd been up for 20 hours on only five hours of sleep. Towards the end of their set, they launched into and instrumental version of Iron Maiden's The Trooper, and the crowd, with no prompting from the band, started singing the verses. It was so metal! It was strange, though, that a Finnish band would look so Scottish.
On the way out, some enterprising young black metal people handed me a free cdr by (presumably their band) Nihlotep. It's pretty good too! Epic local black metal? Why didn't this sort of thing happen when I was in high school? Dammit! Kids these days have all the luck.
