Check out Part 2 feat. Main Stage Closers in Blog Below!
Tits, beer, fat drunk people, and a guy in tea shades and a Grateful Dead t-shirt who might pass for Hunter Thompson’s son freely puff puff passing directly in front of me, sure signs the Metalocalypse (3) had indeed descended upon the sick and twisted backwater Southerners in Dallas, Texas, however briefly.
The following are my thoughts on the demented deeds of the black-clad ones on the night they conspired to bring their destruction and despair to the outlaw state for but a day and not once more. For it was too powerful an occurrence to have been repeated, the world would have imploded itself into an endless sea of darkness should it inherit so much awesome at more than one time. Outside the gates, there were people handing out pamphlets asking “What is Sin?” and tickets to heaven you supposedly could not rip. Futile attempts to withhold the evil that lie beyond the gates.
Upon my arrival I discovered that one of the long haired glue sniffer’s requests had been to have a giant green monster and an intoxicated elk hailing from Germany overlook the events from their own respective stages, which one could only assume had been built to worship these two false idols. The green monster was thought to provide energy and the elk a tired happiness to those who offered sacrifices of American currency. These idols’ stages were placed exactly side by side so that the worshippers could watch their performances by those hailing from their Southern homeland as well as those visiting who hadn’t quite yet made themselves legends, without worshippers having to travel far. Those who had earned such legendary status were placed on another stage in a large soccer field. Many seats were available, but those who had wristbands were allotted space in the open field. I was fortunate enough to have such a wristband. This most giant of spaces was watched by the god of cheap gluttony.
I arrived just at the tail end of Goatwhore’s performance and caught their closer “Alchemy of the Black Sun Cult”, which I enjoyed because it was the only song of theirs I had heard.
Next up were Texas rockers The Destro who were quite possibly the biggest surprise that day, with my assuming they would suck. On the contrary they were the perfect mix of aggressive beats and attractive melody. My compatriot on this trip, Nick, decided he was pumped up enough by the noise that we should enter the circle of polite shoving. I agreed and realized that who shoved who farther was all based upon momentum, size seemed to mean nothing as plenty of small people were sending the big guys flying just as often as vice versa. I was having fun watching muscle heads responding to my playful pushes more than I thought possible. Nick, who I feel should be mentioned as my compatriot on this day, was wearing all denim camo and a patch on his back that read “Black Label Society”. I was decidedly less obvious as an attendant of such an event simply wearing a red t-shirt and black jeans, which at first I thought I may get mocked for, but there turned out to be many patrons in white t-shirts to combat intense heat and more attractive scantily clad females than I have ever seen at these events in the past. Amidst the polite shoving and friendly dust kicking, Nick had managed already to get kneed in the chest and lose both his cell phone and part of his ticket. The phone was raised in the air to be returned by a fellow polite shover and the ticket had been in his pocket all along. He mentioned his appreciation for the brotherhood mentality of these events because what he referred to as an “alternative faggot” would not have returned his phone according to his experience or perhaps bias.
Circle of Polite Shoving
Directly following such a pleasant surprise was an unpleasant one, as the vocalist for the band Witchcraft had caused Nick and myself to proceed pimping away. I daresay I wasn’t quite as offended by the voice as Nick had been but it was iffy enough to make me more than happy to follow him into the mist tent for a minute or two as well as urinate only to find an unopened bag of plastic cups being used for $8 beer conveniently located in the sink. Fuck cold, filtered, $4 Deja Blue when you can have unfiltered, warm hydration in a plastic cup for free.
After chilling out for a while, I decided we may as well check out the accessible female-led In This Moment since only what I knew was mediocre Soilent Greenwas on next. Well, the female vocalist wasn’t quite as impressive as she was recorded (there was this weird wah thing happening with her mic as well) so we left after I got my fill of the song “Beautiful Tragedy” to see if Nick might like Soilent Green more than I. Nick mentioned the female-led band had a much better set last year.
(Ed: They sound a lot better in the video than they did to me hmm...)
Turns out I was far more appreciative of them (Soilent) than when they opened for the mighty Dethklok. At least from where we were waiting for Rigor Mortisto go on I thought they were ok. Still not exactly great though.
I stayed for about 15 minutes of Rigor Mortis’ set and I’m glad I did cause they had a good stage presence going. The lead singer was jumping around like a monkey and pointing to the guitarist’s tapping-heavy guitar work while not singing. When he did sing, he had an awesome microphone that was held up by a bloody chain prop as somewhat of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre reference I’d assume.
Texas Chainsaw Microphone
However impressed I was by them though, their brand of thrash didn’t stop me 15 minutes into their set leaving Nick on my way to
Apocolypticawho were finishing up playing “Fight Fire With Fire” with cellos… with the solo! But while that was cool, I definitely prefer their single “I’m Not Jesus” when Corey Taylor sings it as opposed to whoever that guy filling in was. Still, “Seek and Destroy” was fun to sing along to even when no one on stage was singing and I was pleased by the actual classic fare they played.
I then went back over to the Texas stage for Kingdom of Sorrow and caught “Lead Into Demise” which I enjoyed as a very Hatebreed-esque tune and one I had heard on an official video. However, while I’m a huge fan of the speedy vocals, iconic bandana, immeasurable stage presence and uplifting message provided by Jamy Jasta, his voice is meant for fast and hard-driving beats, and should not be used for any attempt to hold a note for a long time as heard in this chorus. I certainly would not have minded staying for Beard of Doom Kirt Winstein and more awesome heavy-as-hell songs but I wanted to see what the main stage was up to. On my way over there, I noted The Beard of Doom calling Jasta “the hardest working man in metal, hardcore… and emo (boos from crowd), there’s two kinds people!”
Over on the main stage I once again flashed my wrist band to get a good spot on the lawn for Shadows Fallwho I had not at all expected to blow my fucking mind! I have no idea what any of their set list was, but it was heavy melodic and included some of the best guitar work I would hear all night. Furthermore, they had something few others could claim: a not only adequate but perfectly fitting lead singer! I know I was wondering what the hell they got a Grammy for (not that I put any stock in those things) when I asked my fellow 1uppers to vote but I’m pretty sure whoever voted on that award saw them live. At first I thought they were Cavalera Conspiracyat first because the way they were playing you’d think they were 20 year veterans with legendary status. OH MY GOD!
I would have loved to stay but wanted to catch Drowning Poolfor “Bodies”. When I first arrived, they played “Step Up” which makes a lot more sense live than it does recorded. It just works better. They asked if there were any old school Drowning fans out there and when I heard “Iiiii don’t care about anyone else but me” I thought “shit that’s their closer I missed Bodies!”. And then….. “Let the bodies hit the flo’, let the bodies hit the flo’ let the bodies hit the…. FLOOOOOOR!” Yup, got what I came for. Awesome. One of the most popular commercial songs by a Dallas-native band. Could not say I had asked for more.
Then I had to catch some Devildriverover on the second stage. They immediately won my over by opening with “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” and continued to impress me with songs I hadn’t heard, one of which was “Fighting Words” and got a decent mosh pit going. During that song, the lead singer noticed there was a pit on the left near me and a pit on the right. Now the singer for Shadows Fall had also made this command but to my knowledge not gotten it (then again the pits may very well have been nowhere near me so don’t quote me on that), but when Devildriver said “open it up” the two pits were combined instantly, causing even more nasty dirt to find its way into my mouth as I watched on the very edge of the pit. Eventually, they played my favorite, “Clouds Over California” and mentioned “the irony of this song is that there are no clouds where we come from, ever”. Having heard both of my favorite songs of theirs I decided to at least get into a more open space and breathe a bit, if not go over to Cavalera Conspiracy on the main stage. I was stopped in my tracks by yet another great sounding song I hadn’t heard before but hesitantly made my over to the main stage to see… commercials on the big screens because Cavalera was done by the time I got there. Fuck this Warped Tour style of overlapping bands, I should have stayed at Devildriver.
By the way if any of you are wondering why I didn’t follow your votes, quite frankly I couldn’t cause Nick was the only smart one and grabbed a schedule; I forgot which tent he received it at and after leaving him at Rigor Mortis would not see him again before the night was over. Therefore I had to judge purely on how impressed I was with any given band rather than knowing how much time I had to catch whoever.
Eventually, this led to the decision to watch The Sword’s entire awesome-riff filled set. Everything they played was immediately attention-grabbing, opening with what I thought was a cheap rip off of Wolfmother’s riff from “Woman” in “The Balaer’s Blade”, even that won me over when I realized how great the rest of it sounded. I was aware that Jonathon Daviswould hit the main stage soon and would begin walking over every time a song finished. But I shit you not boys and girls, every time I attempted this I would stop in my tracks because the band would pull out another kickass riff every time I got halfway there. This ended up happening until they closed with my newly found favorite song of theirs “The Freya”. Their set was the perfect marriage of a vintage 70s sound with what looked like vintage instruments and some very impressive guitar work which can’t be compared to that of Shadows Fall in style but was at least equally amazing. I couldn’t care less about the fact I was missing parts of Jonathon Davis and possibly good field space while people were seemingly migrating towards him (to be honest I only considered checking out Davis to save a good spot, sorry Red)when it was done. My only complaints are that I wasn’t always digging the lead singer, and they deserved a much bigger crowd to show up at their stage, not the onlookers lining up for Sevendust at the neighboring second stage. Austin, Texas has something very special with this band.
Speaking of Sevendust, my dumb ass self actually did not realize that huge crowd to the right of me while enjoying The Sword was lining up for them. I am still kicking myself for missing them in favor of Jonathon Davis, who wasn’t bad per se but certainly lacked the appeal that other acts had to make me feel like even if I missed a band high on my list it was fine. I am definitely not fine with missing 7D for this. However, I did enjoy myself listening to some of his own tunes that managed to get that driving bass ignipotentbrendan mentions he likes about Korn songs. Hell, I was digging the weird keyboard/bass central stuff as well as his voice for a while. They played a song recorded for Queen of the Dammed and otherwise not played before, but then came the Korn covers. Now I thought my opinion would be the exact opposite, but where his own material worked the Korn stuff just wasn’t working with the band they had, though “Freak on a Leash” was still cool when it was sung by the famed leader of that band. The on-stage aesthetics were fuckin’ with me though, cause the idea of Davis literally sitting on a throne while singing and shouting about how he loves everyone and everything around him so much just screams “diva” to me. That said, I did like the suits on the band which must have been hell cause the sun was now beginning to beat directly on to the stadium. I did appreciate Davis’ respect for a handicapped friend of his lifted up by security in the crowd, and my feelings on this diva feel faded somewhat when he encouraged his guitarist to keep soloing… too bad all the guitarist really did was fast sweeps which can impress, but not when you stay on the exact same part of the guitar neck the entire time. The guitarist is likely capable of far more, but this impromptu turn just wasn’t my style.
Photos Courtesy: Nick, Videos: courtesy youtubers
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