Date: Friday, October 17, 2008
Venue: The Warhol, San Antonio, TX
Bill: Criminals of Assault, Hexlust, Devoured Deception, Disfigured, Hod, Exmortus
PRE-SHOW
A nice sunny day in San Antonio. We get to Kristi’s place, unload crap, and decide that we should have munchies for before and after the show. So we headed to the local H-E-B and get drinks and a nearby Little Caesar’s for pizza. Get back to home base, settle in, and… warm up? No. Oh hell no. That would be doing something right, which was never Hexlust’s forte. What we did was scarf a bunch of pizza and watch Spongebob. Two hours before we’re supposed to head to the gig, and we’re sprawled on the couches and floor in Kristi’s (very nice) living room, feeling very fat and slowly slipping into food comas.
Now in our defense, this was our third straight week playing a show. I know that’s small potatoes in some bands’ eyes, but three out of four of us were in college at the time, and for most if not all college students, the beginning to middle of October is mid-terms time. We were not just hangin’ out, playin’ Nintendo in the five or six days between shows. We were pooped and were taking any opportunity given to chill out. This laziness, however, came back to haunt us with a screaming vengeance.
At the Warhol (conveniently located right next door to the Rock Bottom place where we played last time) we waited around and eventually found out that the first band, Criminals of Assault, did not show up. Since we were to go on second, we got an instant bump-up and had to get right onstage. I was actually very grateful for this due to space. Rock Bottom had a stage area, a bar area, and several back rooms where people could chill and bands could set up their shit. The Warhol, by contrast, had the stage and bar area and that was it. Oh, and a bathroom. Roughly the size of a few mobile homes I’ve visited. This was one of the few times I was happy to build my drum kit onstage.
HEXLUST
I hope you’re not expecting me to say our performance was surprisingly good. Each of us (except maybe Keith, who’s usually immune to such things) was feeling fat and slow, and had absolutely no warm-up time between our Spongebob-a-thon and the immediate setup. My double-bassing was off and I flubbed almost all my fills; Tony started burping while singing and halfway through started feeling as if he would throw up any second (his guitar playing was likewise affected); JT befuddled the intro to Evil Dead, a song we hadn’t played in a while which we for some unchristly reason thought would be cool to bring up again. I think he started before I counted off and ended up off-key. This show was far from a feather in our cap, although I must say we did not get off-time very often. I’d like to think by now we were used to shit going wrong and had developed ways to competently play through it.
DEVOURED DECEPTION
Devoured Deception played next. The only thing I could really say about them at the time was that the drumming was pretty damn solid. Not cuz I’m biased and all, but because THE DRUMS OVERPOWERED EVERYTHING in terms of volume. These dudes had some pretty spiffy-looking guitars, and their amps looked expensive, but I couldn’t tell you a thing about their riffs or solos. I think I occasionally heard the singer. Nowadays though, I can tell you that there were some catchy riffs and neat solos, thanks to videos of that specific performance on YouTube on which the other instruments are more audible.
DISFIGURED
Disfigured were up next. They shared a couple members with that awesome band Ayasoltec from when we played at Rock Bottom, only this was a much more straight-ahead “brutal death metal” band. They were really tight, you could tell they had either been playing together for a long while or they were each just that awesome at musicianship. Keith wasn’t a fan of their bass tone, but that’s bassists for ya. I personally couldn’t hear cuz I was outside, chatting up Exmortus with Tony and JT.
FIRESIDE CHAT WITH EXMORTUS
If our performance could be considered an “injury,” then everything I’m about to write about this band could be considered the “insult” which gets added to it. Not that they were deliberately rubbing in our faces how much cooler and better and more experienced they were than we; they were all very pleasant dudes who were easy to talk to. Tony and JT talked to Balmore and Conan (guitarist/vocalist and guitarist, respectively) about Jackson guitars while they were WARMING UP; Daniel (bassist) popped in for some Simpsons quotes-trading with Tony; I talked to Mario (the drummer) about drum head preference as he was setting up his kit. Outside. Where there is NOTHING BUT ROOM FOR SETTING UP. I wish I could defend myself by saying that it was cold outside and I preferred to do all my kit construction in a warm building, but it was October in the middle of Texas, lukewarm at the chilliest.
HOD
Hod went on after Disfigured. The stage here was even smaller than Rock Bottom’s, so it was that much funnier seeing these big mountain men squeezing themselves and their big mountain gear into their playing space. Don’t believe me? There are videos of this performance on YouTube as well. In fact, everyone except us have videos of their performances from this evening posted there. (Not that we're complaining) I don’t remember much from this performance except being able to recognize the song “Victims,” even though it was only my second time seeing them. While chilling outside, where I could hear the band and not be pushed around by the crowd, I got into a conversation about metal and faith with some really cool Christian metal guy. I must say, it's not very often something like that happens.
EXMORTUS
Last were Exmortus. Now, even though these dudes were as nice as pie, part of me secretly hated them for their awesomeness and would not have been sad if they failed on stage. Alas, they were awesome! Solos all over the place! Awesome-tastic drumming, including blast-beating and stick-twirling! Just jaw-droppingly unbelievable! Just when I thought they couldn’t have the crowd eating out of their palms any more, they announced a Slayer cover: Hell Awaits. They went with that intro, and then switched it up by flying into Angel of Death. Crowd lost their shit. When all that was said and done, the audience demanded more. I was asking “What could possibly follow that? What could be more awesome than a Slayer medley?” The answer: ANOTHER SLAYER SONG! They busted out with Chemical Warfare and I was the one losing my shit. See, back in the day, Hexlust (being me, Tony, and James) were going to try doing that song, but James found himself befuddled by the tabs and I was secretly dreading how long it was. So we abandoned it. Because it was hard. And now THEY came along and made it effortlessly AWESOME!
If you look in the far right corner, you'll see our very own Tarzan and JT rocking out!
POST-SHOW
By the time the show was over, I was so awesomed out I wasn’t even bitter about my own performance anymore. We talked to Exmortus some more, got paid (fifty bucks! Yeah!) took an awesome pic with Exmortus and Devoured Deception, and were on our merry way. That next day, on our way back to Killeen, I was already pounding out triplets on a pillow in Keith’s Jeep, resolving to practice more and develop a serious warm-up regimen before every show. We all were.
